Gizmodo reports UPS Has Been Delivering Cargo in Self-Driving Trucks for Months And No One Knew.
UPS announced on Thursday that its venture capital arm has made a minority investment in TuSimple. The announcement also revealed that since May TuSimple autonomous trucks have been hauling UPS loads on a 115-mile route between Phoenix and Tucson.
UPS confirmed to Gizmodo this is the first time UPS has announced it has been using TuSimple autonomous trucks to deliver packages in the state.
Around the same time as the UPS and TuSimple program began, the United States Postal Service and TuSimple publicized a two-week pilot program to deliver mail between Phoenix and Dallas, a 1,000 mile trip.
TuSimple claims it can cut the average cost of shipping in a tractor-trailer by 30 percent. In an announcement about the new partnership, UPS Ventures managing partner, Todd Lewis, said the venture arm “collaborates with startups to explore new technologies and tailor them to help meet our specific needs.”
UPS would not share the terms of the deal with Gizmodo. TuSimple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TuSimple puts its own autonomous tech—which relies on nine cameras and two LIDAR sensors—in Navistar vehicles.
TuSimple Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMXT-j6jns
Zero engagements in a storm.
TuSimple is now hooked up with both UPS and the US Post Office (USPS).
On February 16, I commented Self-Driving Truck Startup “TuSimple” Confident of Commercial Driverless by 2021.
The company’s cameras can see about 1,000 meters, or 3,280 feet ahead, said Chuck Price, TuSimple’s chief product officer. “From a half mile away we can spot emergency vehicles, cars broken down on the side of the road, people walking around,” said Price.
“We are confident that we will have our first commercial driverless operation in late 2020 to 2021,” Mr. Price said.
Technology Not the Holdup
For now there are backup drivers. That will change within the next two years.
The main holdup is not technology but federal legislation.
Commercial driverless will be here by the end of 2021 if federal regulation allows, which I expect.
Then, within a few years of federal regulatory approval, most interstate highway truck traffic will be driverless.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I noticed that the two men in the truck were Asian, maybe Chinese. They also look rather young. Most likely they are s/w engineers. And, probably damn good ones.
I am wondering if autonomous vehicle technology is something that the US will try to protect. Will the Chinese monitor the US development and then steal the technology?
Mish, you probably know — is China investing in autonomous vehicle technology as aggressively as the US?
Bob
“Will the Chinese monitor the US development and then steal the technology?”
For sure. Just like “The US” monitored the wheel and stole it from someone in the middle east….
China has lots of auto-drive work going on. Baidu, for instance, has released an open source “driver”. You can download it yourself, buy compatible hardware (sensors, car, etc.), and build your own test car.
Is there any data on collision technology? How does a driverless vehicle handle accidents with other motorist? Sideswipes or rear end collisions? Types that are not necessarily the driverless vehicles fault? Even major collisions ? How is that handled? Do vehicles have sensors for when another vehicle swipes it or even just hits it mirror. Or even rear ended by a car. Sometimes u barely feel that type of collision if car rear ends your trailer at slow speed but it does major damage to the other car.
There’ll be multi redundant sensors for darned near everything. Rapidly dropping prices of all kinds of connected sensors is the underlying advancement which is fueling the self driving hope and change. There’s no reason why it should not take more than a slight sideswipe, to render the drivebot confused from lack of sensory input.
Instead, the problem is integrating all the inputs, and making acceptable decisions based on them. To do that, you need lots and lots and lots of ongoing testing. And, you cannot just keep masturbating by only “testing” situations you already know are safe. Instead, properly testing requires repeatedly failing, or at a minimum pitching your 70mph truck into situations where you simply don’t know if it will fail or not. Otherwise, you’re not testing at all; just pretending to. Those sorts of tests, while absolutely necessary in any complex field, can be a bit of a bear to justify, to those who just got ran over as a result of a test, no matter how much you learned from it.
Which is why you’ll see really, really slow and cautions rollout of anything like this. Babysteps squared over and over. That way, any failure of any magnitude will be maximally contained. And only once there is enough experience in one highly controlled and limited environment, will the next babystep be attempted. The only scenarios where development may go faster, is if/when the tech gets cheap enough to be jerry rigged for guerilla war duty, by dudes a lot less concerned about a “failure” or fifty, than the kind of giant, lawsuit averse organizations and environments behind most of the current hype.
Did anyone notice in the video that the cruise control seemed to not keep that truck at a very steady pace?@[Trucking 84] Maybe you know. Is a rig hard to keep locked in at highway speed, but slower than the flow, in light traffic on a flat freeway?
“I’m not supporting the hijacking argument, but does the truck never stop for gas? Seems like that would be a good point.”
At least we have a new question.
The truck will stop at a hub. It will be locked. There will be other people around, so it would take collusion to break in.
The truck cameras would record it even if someone managed to turn off the hub cameras.
No one will have access to the truck other than to refuel it, change the oil, etc. Cargo bays locked.
The amusing thing about all of this is it will be MORE secure, not less.
The notion that a driver alone prevents hijacking seems downright silly.
Balloons, women on roller skates etc. stopping a truck is silly.
Yes, some idiot is bound to try. will get caught immediately, and that will be the end of the stupid idea.
Yes, absolutely. People who have been displaced by the widespread automation will simply curl up and die!
“What is to prevent hijacking of these driver-less vehicles if there is no on-board security?”
Why does this totally absurd and debunked question keep coming up?
Let me answer with a question: Where the F is the truck going, how fast, and how fast can it be unloaded?
The moment the truck is not where it is supposed to be, police will be notified. So the truck itself is going nowhere. Its movements will be recorded.
How does one stop the truck in the first place? Even assuming someone manages, the same signal will be sent.
OK how fast can the truck be unloaded? To what vehicle? And what about cameras.
Then the truck is on the interstate with govt agencies notified. They may even have helicopters.
Please stop the absolute bullshit. This is getting tiring.
You think the economy is bad now what do you think it’ll be like putting all the truck drivers out of jobs?? If they get the autonomous truck figured out then it’ll be just a matter of time before they have robots or something engineered to do someone else’s job then that person will be out of a job.. then on to the next and so on and so on… doesn’t take a genius to see what it’s gonna do for this economy..
agree with Trucking 84 – Made similar comments many times
“… so on and so on …”
Right. Just as has been happening for the last 200 years.
Only, in places like the States, the low-hanging fruit was picked clean well over a 100 years ago. By way of comparison, truckers are some single digit fraction of the population. Their jobs go away? Pfft. A couple hundred years ago, farmers were something like 90%-95% of the population. Their jobs went away. Gone. And, when pretty much everyone withing traveling distance is out of a job, that’s what “out of a job” is, my friend.
And, losing all those farming jobs was scary. Really, really scary. Read what people had to say back then. They did not know what would happen. They had no idea, mostly no hope, that losing all those jobs would lead to a world where, in practice, hardly anyone works! Think about it. Sitting in an heated, air-conditioned building, in a plush chair, eating fine cuisine, dirt-cheap from around the world? You call that work?!?
Yeah, you and I don’t know what people will be doing for a living 50 years from now. No one does. But I hear nothing new in the worries about AI taking our jobs. So I go with the odds.
This is not to say that losing those trucking jobs won’t hurt. It will. Some people.
A-freaking-men
I’m not supporting the hijacking argument, but does the truck never stop for gas? Seems like that would be a good point.
What is to prevent hijacking of these driver-less vehicles if there is no on-board security?
No steering wheel?
You don’t need a steering wheel if the hijacking is done electronically.
Don’t put your money in banks or any other financial institution if you are worried about such security risks then. These are not “remote controlled” vehicles, they are autonomous vehicles – they might have their destinations overridden, but they aren’t likely to be able to be turned into drones that have no built in safety mechanisms.
LOL. These are going to be networked – for operational and efficiency reasons. Heard of IOT? Well, each of these trucks is going to one of those “things”. If you think each truck is going to be an island unconnected to the rest of the world, then you will have another think coming.
It depends on the systems connected – if the navigation systems and driving systems are locked separately from the local comms systems, then it should not be a problem.
Again, if we are concerned about hacking, remember the Dilinger philosophy – go where the money is – if banks are secure despite being attacked almost relentlessly and they are able to handle millions of retail transactions per hour, I think we can relax a bit regarding inter-vehicle comms systems.
I am actually referring to the theft of the cargo. Another truck pulls up alongside, they break into the trailer and steal the contents.
More testing with human drivers in the truck. Doesn’t seem like much of an advance.
You’re right – but imagine one day in the future if they suddenly realize that they don’t need drivers any longer … they could call them “self driving trucks”.
I do not have a breakdown. If the 30% includes the cost of the equipment, the investment would pay itself off in about three years. I will write them to see if I can get an answer.
You definitely have been one of the few who have written on this for years. My wife said her company has been worming o autonomous trucks for about ten years now. The trucking companies just do not advertise it. 2020 or 2021 sounds about right.
“Commercial driverless will be here by the end of 2021” – this is a pretty broad/ambiguous statement. Are these driverless semis only roaming Interstates away from cities? I doubt they will drive up to your local Walmart/Costco anytime soon. I.e. they won’t pass CDL test anytime soon.
You’re looking more and more prescient on this subject Mish. The savings are estimated at 30%, but is that per trip, or will the cost savings of being able to run trucks 24/7 (i.e. not mandated driver stops) also kick in and lower costs further? Does anybody have a detailed breakdown of the savings? I’m assuming the up front costs will be greater.