I've always felt that self driving trucks make the most economical sense to automate. A self driving truck would get to its destination faster (saving money) and without the need for a driver (saving money). And the majority of their time is spent on relatively predictable interstate roads, not the chaotic roads of a busy downtown, so they'd be simpler to automate.<p>Otto (the self-driving truck company that Uber bought and is now shuttering) was the first I'd heard of that. It's a bit sad that they're shutting down.
The new CEO continues to impress. When he took over, Kalanick had Uber in something like a hundred side-businesses, a massive waste of focus, effort, brand and capital. This isn't the first or will be the last black hole side venture Dara is getting Uber out of. And he's already established his 100x better at PR and building/protecting the brand than Travis was.<p>Uber never needed to be in the automated trucks business, there are zero synergies with their core business, and it's not even clear that will ever be a good business to be in. Is Uber Eats next on the chopping block? That would probably be my choice.
I'm generally pro-self-driving vehicles, and while I don't want to underestimate the difficulties, given how far related tech has gone in recent years I think it'd be a mistake to assume any of this is "never" going to happen.<p>Despite this, I've been very nervously watching how truck driving and self-driving interact. I feel like city-to-city long haul driving will have a very rapid turnover once a certain tech threshold is hit. That threshold might be 5 years out or 20 years out or even further, but once it is reached a lot of jobs cease to be as profitable very quickly.<p>Trucking is a major source of strong employment for those without a college degree. It is a significant source of employment all across the US, and there are related effects - entire small towns and certainly many small businesses rely on the income from truckers. (Everything here is about the US because I know too little about non-US to have even these vague reactions)<p>Miners have become a synonym for workers displaced by technology - yet mining was always 1-2 orders of magnitude smaller than modern trucking and took multiple generations to decline. Trucking could lose a big chunk of the industry in the course of a decade or less, to the tune of a million drivers or more. Having a million or more drivers that are suddenly unemployed or under employed would have a huge impact on the economy and public faith in the economy. Having this occur is predictable even if we can't predict when. Yet how many have given serious discussion on how to handle the reaction once this starts coming to pass?<p>Could be confirmation bias on my part, but I see cases like this - where the effort proved to be more complicated than expected - to falsely create the narrative that this is not a real problem to consider, which just makes the eventual impact worse.<p>EDIT: Please stop thinking I want to "protect" trucking or "stop" self-driving technology. I want neither - I just want us (society) to take advantage of the time when we know a change is coming but isn't here yet rather than deny it as "not yet real" and then wring our hands in despair over the consequences once it IS real.
I think the sad result of this story is that they are going to keep going with the self-driving car technology. During the investigation into the fatal crash accident they had, they showed how reckless they are. It would be great if they learned anything from the death of that person and rethink QA and decisions, but I doubt it.
Time will tell.
Having experienced a winter car accident on a highway involving a semi truck where the truck wasn't damaged but my car was totaled, I am extremely grateful the truck stopped and its driver allowed me to wait in the heated cab while waiting for police to arrive.<p>The idea of all these massive trucks autonomously operating on our highways strikes me as a very dystopian future. I appreciate the humans in the machines accompanying me on cross-country road trips. Without the truckers, much of these vast spaces will become far more desolate and dangerous to travel through.<p>I'm fine with technology assisting truckers, but am hopeful there will continue to be a requirement of people being present with ultimate authority over the vehicle.
I think to do this right (safely) we need to start looking at how to integrate roads with self driving cars and trucks and at vehicle to vehicle communication.<p>At some point there needs to be standards set for these kinds of things and, really, the sooner the better.<p>I think we, as consumers, would be better served with a vehicle that could safely drive down the highway for long distances right now than a car that can drive us to work and back on city streets 10 years from now.<p>And if we integrate roadway to vehicle communication from the highways outward the transition will be more efficient, especially for trucks.
The only thing that made less sense than Uber focusing on trucks (Uber Freight, AV Trucks) is Uber Elevate (flying cars). The days of Uber testing crazy, new ideas is over.<p>The downside is that some of them actually worked. I can't see Dara ever green lighting Eats, which is now a great business. Note that Dara & Expedia completely missed the AirBnB phenomenon and had to play catch up many years later.
I suddenly have the urge to research "Why was an interstate system built vice an interconnected railway system?" I'm guessing that the auto industry lobby team was stronger than the rail lobbyists, even though at this point it seems like the rail was the better choice economically.
Is this in any way related to the Levandowski lawsuit? The thesis of that suit was that Uber only bought Otto to get a hold of Levandowski and his Google knowledge...
Since autonomous driving technology is not there yet, I believe truck OEMs should focus on ADAS to enable lane keeping and lane change on highways only, as this is the easiest part of the job. Drivers would be require to intervene as soon as the truck exits the highway.<p>I presume this is what Tesla will do with their trucks although I am very concerned by their very dubious marketing when it comes to autonomous driving technology.
It seems like a smart transition technology would be truck driving roads. Basically install sensors on major freeways for longhaul routes which allows the road to take the wheel. You could have on/off ramps for this so people could take over the last mile.
I wonder how long it will take until public press will admit that the autonomous driving hype was just that, a hype to generate investor money. We aren't there yet, it was obvious already a few years ago when google and tesla began to push the media.
This is surprising to me as well. I have seen first-hand how tedious it can be to find reliable truck drivers, particularly in the Midwest. I am eager to see how this industry shifts in the next couple decades.
Article didn’t actually say why they’re shutting it down. Is the tech not feasible?<p>With the Otto lawsuit settled and Levandowski gone it should have cleared the way. Focusing instead on self driving cars doesn’t make sense.
Instead of fully automatic it would be good if they could be remotely operated for a short period of time, this would give the driver a chance to check their; phone, paper work, pee in a bottle.
I think they should focus on just one segment at a time and this is a good decision by them.
They have the market to put self driving car in use but they cannot do the same for trucks.
How about we start with self-driving _trains_ that don't fly off the rails when some train engineer ignores the speed limit, and don't run into each other due to mis-routing. That'd be a good start for this whole "self driving" thing.
Soon to be followed by: Uber shuts down, full stop. Sure, Softbank shoveled another shipload of money into the gaping maw of this capital furnace, but they're still burning it. Now, in addition to a tragically bad main business, they also don't have the fairy tale about how autonomous vehicles will eventually make them win.