Uber's Self-Driving Truck Went on a 120-Mile Beer Run To Make History (businessinsider.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In the arms race to build self-driving vehicles, Uber-owned Otto just reached a landmark milestone by completing the first-ever commercial cargo run for a self-driving truck. On October 20, the self-driving truck left Fort Collins, Colorado at 1 a.m. and drove itself 120 miles on I-25 to Colorado Springs. The driver, who has to be there to help the truck get on and off the interstate exit ramps, moved to the backseat alongside a crowd of transportation officials to watch the historic ride. 2,000 cases of Budweiser beer filled the trailer. "We're just thrilled. We do think this is the future of transportation," James Sembrot, senior director of logistics strategy at Anheuser-Busch, told Business Insider.

Comments

like in the movie?

[k6mfw]

I didn't RTFA, I guess this turn was able to outsmart Buford T. Justice.

Re:like in the movie?

[Joce640k]

2,000 crates of Budweiser? They weren't risking much it it flipped over. Nobody's going to cry over that.

Re:like in the movie?

[Fire_Wraith]

Well, it wouldn't be the first time someone made a Black Self-Driving Trans-Am...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:like in the movie?

[ShanghaiBill]

Budweiser has a very large brewery in Fort Collins. Right off I25.

And there is a large feedlot right next to it, where they collect the piss.

To be fair, a pretty easy run

[SuperKendall]

As anyone who has driven I-25 from Ft. Collins to Colorado Springs, it's all wide highway, and the average speed is around 4 MPH.

Re:To be fair, a pretty easy run

[lostinbrave]

Uhm I have never experienced 4 mph except in metro Denver, and the slower speeds in traffic are where more accidents happen anyway and there are more problems. And yes I used to make the drive fairly often.

Re:To be fair, a pretty easy run

[DirkDaring]

He was clearly exaggerating. It's more like 7 mph.

Re:To be fair, a pretty easy run

[phantomfive]

Not to mention there was no traffic on the road that late at night, and more importantly, you don't learn anything scientific from doing this (and afaict, they don't even claim to have learned anything), it's just a publicity stunt.

And Uber has been doing a lot of these kinds of publicity stunts lately. My theory is that they are trying to pump up their valuation for an IPO (or another round of funding or whatever).

Re:To be fair, a pretty easy run

[slashdice]

It was probably embarrassed. I mean, would you like to be seen with budweiser?

Re:Self driving cars don't have to be perfect...

[Joce640k]

... they just have to be better than humans. And sadly, in many areas they already are - give it a few more years for the remaining rough spots.

One important difference:

When humans screw up they're usually not worth suing.

When self-driving cars screw up there's a large, wealthy company to try to sue.

Legality

[captaindomon]

"The driver, who has to be there to help the truck get on and off the interstate exit ramps, moved to the backseat alongside a crowd of transportation officials to watch the historic ride."
Slashdot: Is that... Leeegal?
Emperor Uber: I'll make it legal!

We're just thrilled!

[swb]

"We're just thrilled. We do think this is the future of transportation," James Sembrot, senior director of logistics strategy at Anheuser-Busch, told Business Insider.

"I have a bonus target that kicks in when I cut our labor tab by $2 million, this will easily help me get there by eliminating a bunch of Teamster hacks and their pension contributions," Sembrot added.

"Wait, is your recorder still running? Can we cut that last part out, I want to keep the focus on how AB-InBev is embracing new technologies, that last part is kind of off the record."

Should never have been allowed

[JustNiz]

Self-driving tech is still at a point where cars are having accidents (some even fatal) , and requires car drivers to be in the driving seat and have their hands on the wheel.
For them to have a fully loaded semi on the freeway and the driver to get in the back seat was blatantly irresponsible. This experiment should never even have been legal.

Re:Should never have been allowed

[chrysrobyn]

For them to have a fully loaded semi on the freeway and the driver to get in the back seat was blatantly irresponsible. This experiment should never even have been legal.

According to TFA, they've been preparing for this one run for 6 months. Mapping it out, training the AI on the dynamics of loaded trailers, sending humans down the road to see when the safest time is, etc. You can bet more than a few lawyers were consulted during the course of this work between two companies.

AI cars have such a low safety requirement, they're going to have to swerve around them to avoid tripping over it. In cars, they have soccer moms with screaming kids and middle managers gabbing on cell phones, distracted driving accounts for half of the traffic out there. In the case of a commercial trucker, we're talking overtired and bored. An AI with an adequate vision system can easily out perform the most distracted drivers on controlled roads in perfect weather. We talk about self driving cars as though they only win the safety game with 0% accidents, but if safety concerned moms and wealthy business people buy them, I think tail end of the safety curve is going to get chopped off, bringing the averages up. Hell, I'd chip in for a retrofit on a BMW I keep seeing on my commute.

Dummy Beer

[niaxilin]

Eventually, Otto started adding dummy trailers, eventually filling them with dummy beer to understand how the truck would react when it was fully loaded.

So they filled the dummy trailers with Budweiser?

Wrong Answer for Long Distance Shipping

[CanadianMacFan]

Self driving trucks aren't the right answer for long distance shipping. Sure, it becomes cheaper and safer in the longer term to have trucks drive themselves. But it won't reduce the overall traffic levels, lower the pollution from so many trucks, or reduce the damage to the roads by the vehicles. More trucks will still be needed in the future as more and more goods are transported. It will be lowered because each truck will be on the road more.

We need to go back to railroads for deliveries between large cities. From there then trucks, either with a driver or self driving, can take the goods from the rail yards throughout the city and to the smaller cities nearby. It would mean further reliance on shipping containers but they are a proven technology. Drivers would become local from long haul. This plan would get many large trucks off of the highways which would make them safer, reduce maintenance costs, and drop the need to expand them.

For larger companies such as Walmart instead of loading a truck at their warehouse to go to a specific store or two they would load a container. The container would be taken to the closest rail yard. The rail company would have trains going to nearby cities leaving at regular times instead of waiting for the train to reach a certain size. The container would reach the destination city at a certain time and the company would have a local driver there pick it up and drive it to the proper store(s). This would be instead of having one driver go directly from the warehouse to the store.

I thought about this one night when I was going from Toronto to Ottawa on the train and most of the traffic on the highway was large trucks. They were all going to the same places (Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal, etc). If most of that cargo could be shipped by train it would be better for the environment, the highways would be safer, taxpayers would save money on the highways, and companies could save even more on delivery costs.

Not the First

[CaptainOfSpray]

TFA is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Not the first, not the biggest, not the most difficult.

Read this instead http://qz.com/656104/a-fleet-o...

A week of driving, trucks from several manufacturers, 2000 km Stockholm to Rotterdam across 4 borders.

Uber don't have a clue what they are up against. 120 miles? F**king amateurs.