Uber To Stop Developing Self-Driving Trucks

[appalachiablue]

Source: Reuters

Through its acquisition of Otto in 2016, Uber had sought to disrupt freight hauling with self-driving trucks and Uber Freight, its smartphone app that connects truck drivers and shippers.

Uber Freight, which has seen "rapid" growth, is unaffected by the decision, the company said.

Trucking has been viewed by transportation experts as a natural application for self-driving technology because of the relative predictability of highways compared with busy city streets.

Uber had unveiled plans earlier this year to integrate manual trucking with self-driving trucks by deploying the former for short hauls and the latter for longer distances...more...


Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/uber-to-stop-developing-self-driving-trucks/ar-BBLhDhn

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San Francisco-based Uber faces competition from Silicon Valley companies including Tesla Inc and Alphabet Inc's Waymo as well as traditional automakers such as Ford and General Motors in the race to bring self-driving cars to the market.

- Fortune, 'Uber Puts the Brakes on Self-Driving Truck Program That Spurred Lawsuit,' July 30, 2018.
http://fortune.com/2018/07/30/uber-self-driving-truck-program-otto-lawsuit-closed/

[spooky3]

1. As someone who knows little about the technology, it seemed to me that

driverless long-haul trucks would make a lot more sense than driverless cars. The stories about the awful conditions for drivers and monotonous work made it obvious how useful it could be if the technology could be developed, whereas I can't imagine how it would be effective or cost-saving for businesses in cities to use driverless cars.

So there must be a lot more to the story.

[xor]

4. From my understanding, that's how many companies plan on using it.

Using it on the long-haul shipments and then handing it over to human drivers for the last mile (or whatever terminology they use) Another thing I hear a lot is that there would be a human driver in one of those long-haul trucks and then a convoy of automated trucks would follow behind it.

[spooky3]

5. interesting nt

[rwsanders]

6. I think trains are a much better answer and we won't have the safety concerns...

It could also happen now. This article is a great read. Trains are more fuel efficient, and much of the system could be electrified using wind power as some of the areas with the most wind resources are on the paths of the railroads. The article also says it would cost less and be safer just to load trucks and drivers on the train and ship them together.
https://www.alternet.org/story/119359/let%27s_get_get_those_freight_trucks_off_the_road_and_put_america_back_on_tracks
I know I'm becoming a Luddite, but I suspect that part of the drive (oops for the pun) for driverless cars is that puts much of the development costs of autonomous weapons on the automakers. I could be wrong, but if I'm not, there are a few people who should be careful around anyone named Sarah Connor.

[DeminPennswoods]

9. Trailers already ship via Rail

Trains run through my small hometown every 15-20 minutes sometimes, most loaded with double stacked trailers on gondola cars going east and west. I seriously doubt there are that many semis going cross-country or extremely long distances these days.

[rwsanders]

14. I don't have hard data, but the few times I've driven cross country, the traffic was staggering. ...

And rail is nowhere near capacity as they've thrown their lot in with the coal industry and where I am (KCMO) 90% of rail traffic is coal.

[robbob]

12. Ask the victims of

The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster ) how they feel about freight trains.

[rwsanders]

13. With 40,000 dead yearly on the roads in the US, there are probably that many killed by trucks...

daily here.

[DeminPennswoods]

16. There are a lot of semis on the road, but I doubt most of

them are on cross-country jaunts. Their trailers are moving by freight train and hooked up to the cabs at the end of the journey.

[TheFrenchRazor]

2. good. we don't need self-driving cars or trucks. nt

[xor]

3. I would rather Uber get out of anything related to self-driving.

Not because I am against the idea of autonomous vehicles, but because Uber has proven itself to not be a responsible company. They just muck things up.

[jeffreyi]

7. Remember choo-choo trains?

I am not informed in railroad history, or the whys and wherefors of whether railroad trains thrive or disappear, but they have disappeared from my location anyway. I've often wondered if the trucking industry was/is a huge make work/employment program, seeing as how rail transport is so much more efficient, and employs far fewer workers.

[DeminPennswoods]

11. Container/trailer shipment is a huge part of the railroad

freight business. In Pittsburgh, Norfolk Southern is trying to get the city and state to raise some bridges so double stacked container cars can pass through instead of having to route around.

[soryang]

8. Do they pull the rear axles, drop the tandems, and back up?

I'd like to see that.

[Snellius]

10. They already invented that. They're called trains.

Individual vehicles waste energy, space, time, money, and nerves.

[Upward]

15. If You Use Uber But Tell People Not to Shop At Wal-Mart

Fuck you.


Just sayin'