Uber cans autonomous trucks

By Colin Windell

 

 

After making history in 2016 with the delivery of 50 000 cans of Budweiser beer by means of an autonomous truck test, Uber has announced it is canning the programme in favour of other self-driving programme activities.

That division — a part of Uber’s Advance Technology Group — had other successes as well, including delivering freight on highways in Arizona using automated Volvo big rigs.

The robot-driven Volvo trucks were rolled out in November and included a human backup driver. The company did not have a formal partnership with Volvo but, instead, retrofitted Volvo trucks with their technology.

Uber said ending their self-driving truck program will allow the company to focus their energy on their self-driving car program, which the company is moving to relaunch on public roads – this after it was suspended in March when a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, was struck and killed by one of Uber’s driverless vehicles, leading to a National Transportation Safety Board investigation.

“We recently took the important step of returning to public roads in Pittsburgh, and as we look to continue that momentum, we believe having our entire team’s energy and expertise focused on this effort is the best path forward,” says Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group.

Uber’s self-driving truck program faced competition from a number of companies, including Tesla and Waymo — formerly known as Google’s self-driving car project — which began hauling cargo in Atlanta in March. Waymo said their technology would power Peterbilt Class 8 trucks to carry cargo bound for Google’s data centers.