Self-driving truck does beer run on Otto-pilot

(The technology that has made this self-driving truck possible is wonderful and warrants applause, but sadly, it is misdirected. The wonderful human endeavour and intuition, often counter-intuitive, needs to be direct toward designing, understanding, and creating a public transport system that is measurably less energy intensive – Robert McLean)

Making trucking driverless.

Trucking is big business, employing 3.5 million drivers, travelling 433 billion miles and delivering 70 percent of all freight transported in the states.

Much of that driving is on the Interstate Highway System, where the trips can be very long and boring. It is tedious work and doesn’t pay all that well (the average wage being $32,000 per annum) so there is a serious shortage of drivers. It can be dangerous; according to Alex Davies in Wired, 400,000 trucks are involved in crashes each year, killing about 4,000 people.

That’s where Otto comes in. The Uber-owned company developed hardware and software that makes trucks totally autonomous on the highway, adding 3 LIDAR laser systems, RADARs and cameras.

Read the story by Lloyd Alter on Treehugger - “Self-driving truck does beer run on Otto-pilot.”