Auto Express

Trucks catch up to the self-driving car race



OXFORD, UK – We’d all be spinning around in robots now if Elon Musk was right.

Fully self-driving cars are struggling to get out of the starting grid instead, and some investors are betting that there are no drivers. vans will go to checkered flag first.

Just a year ago, startups developing robotics raised eight times more capital than companies working on trucks, buses and autonomous logistics vehicles, but the gap has closed. significantly by 2021.

With fewer regulatory and technological barriers, trucks operate on major highways, fixed delivery routes, or in environments far from cyclists and pedestrians such as mines and modern harbors. is being seen as a faster way to make a profit.

In the year to December 6, total investment in self-driving logistics vehicles increased fivefold to $6.5 billion from $1.3 billion in the same period in 2020, according to the data platform. Start-up PitchBook.

Meanwhile, investment in robotaxi companies fell 22% to $8.4 billion from $10.8 billion over the same period, PitchBook data compiled for Reuters showed.

The numbers can even speak to this trend as some robotaxi companies like Alphabet Inc’s Waymo are also pumping more money into their autonomous trucking operations.

In its latest trucking deal, Robotic Research said Thursday it has raised dollars228 million by tapping outside investors for the first time to expand its trucking, bus, and autonomous logistics vehicle business.

New money comes from investors including SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, Enological Capital and Luminar Technologies, which make lidar sensors used in self-driving cars.

Robotics research executive Alberto Lacaze told Reuters the company is rolling out self-driving car at the scale where the business case works for the “right now” customer.

“They don’t have to wait until 2025, unlike robotaxis, where you need the cost of all the sensors to come down by a large extent,” he said.

PAST

Most recently in 2019, Tesla’s Musk has promised “there will definitely be a million robots next year,” but self-driving cars that can safely navigate anywhere are still far from available.

Peter Rawlinson, head tram (EV) startup Lucid Motors, said last month it would be a decade https://reut.rs/3ocMXh4 before swarms of robots hit the road – even with the most advanced sensors.

PitchBook’s top mobility analyst Asad Hussain says startups like Gatik, which makes automated short-haul vans, and Nuro with a small delivery service robot, which could eclipse Waymo and rival Cruise in the next few years in large-scale commercialization.

However, while long-haul trucks are easier to automate than trucks because major highways are a simpler environment than busy city roads, self-driving truck company executives are cautious about how fast they can accelerate.

“We are very aware of the hype,” said Cheng Lu, chief executive officer of self-driving truck technology company TuSimple, which announced in April with a market value of $8.5 billion. that the industry has created.

“The industry understands how complex the problem is today and it will take longer to solve it,” he said.

Currently, TuSimple has a fleet of about 50 trucks with safe drivers across the warmer southern states of the United States, but it plans to have a national network covering major U.S. highways. Period in 2024.

That will involve massive investments in highway mapping, learning to handle harsher road and weather conditions further north, and in new self-driving trucks that are already underway. Developed by Navistar, part of Volkswagen’s Traton.

‘A LONG TRIP’

But rolling out a true national network could take years as self-driving trucks still face one major challenge: human drivers.

An autonomous vehicle will always hit brake Ralf Klaedtke, Chief Technology Officer at TE Connectivity, which makes sensors and avionics to process large volumes of self-driving data for the auto industry, said if it encountered a “male” full of testosterone”.

“Autonomous vehicles will always be the slowest in mixed traffic,” he said.

Paul Newman, founder of British autonomous vehicle software startup Oxbotica, says robotaxis remains the “Northern Star”, his clear long-term goal.

But for now, he’s focusing on simpler apps, some of which use self-driving car from Australian startup EV applied.

“It’s been a long journey,” he said while showing off test cars at the company’s headquarters in Oxford, England. “It’s one of the hardest engineering problems to solve.”

Oxbotica is working on vehicles for the mines in partnership with Wenco, part of Hitachi Construction Machinery, and on various options with energy company BP, such as vehicles for energy farms Sun and wind in the distance.

Morag Watson, BP’s Senior Vice President of Science and Digital, says Oxbotica’s technology could be used to monitor large locations or deliver equipment to humans. repair. She said they will test different options in 2022.

“We have barely done anything on the surface of what we can do with industrial autonomy,” said Watson.

Oxbotica is also partnering with UK technology and online food delivery company Ocado, which automates supply chain systems for US retail chain Kroger. BP and Ocado have both invested in Oxbotica.

Alex Harvey, Ocado’s head of advanced technology, says Oxbotica’s technology can be used “in the warehouse, in the yard, on the road, or the curb all the way to the kitchen”.

NO LEFT KEY!

U.S. autonomous electric vehicle maker Outrider has targeted distribution yards – picking up trailers after truck drivers drop them off and lining up new lines for pickup – including at a parking lot in Chicago for the Georgia-Pacific Paper Company.

Outrider has developed a robotic arm for trucks to connect and disconnect trailers. It has raised $118 million to date, and CEO Andrew Smith says it will scale to thousands of vehicles within the next five years.

The startup wanted to start making short hops between yards, but operating on public roads would add complexity, Smith said.

“We saw the early hype of the technology, and distribution yards were recognized as the perfect short-term solution for repetitive, low-speed operations in the environment,” he said. limit”.

Going out on public roads requires careful maneuvering, partly because of regulations, but also because of regulatory pitfalls in a contested market like the United States.

Ian White, chief digital officer insurer Koffie Labs, said a “billion-dollar black swan” crash could wipe out any company that moves too fast and gets it wrong.

“You’re going to put your balance sheet first,” he says.

That’s why Gatik has chosen a careful approach for its “midway” delivery routes between distribution centers and retailers, said CEO Gautam Narang.

Gatik trucks take short, predictable routes, avoiding left turns facing oncoming traffic, schools, hospitals, fire stations, intersections – or anything complicated. .

“We don’t deal with every complicated situation that the autonomous vehicle industry is trying to solve,” he said. “We are taking small steps using routes that are unstable from a complexity point of view.”

Gatik partners with Walmart Inc and Loblaw Companies Ltd to use self-driving trucks safely, although it operates some driverless routes in Arkansas and sees the global driver shortage as an opportunity. .

“We decided to focus on a simpler use case where the need was so urgent,” Narang said. “We don’t build technology for the sake of technology.”



Source link

news7h

News7h: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button