Autonomous Semi Delivers Fruit Cross-Country Quicker Than Humans

Self-driving vehicles are years, if not decades, away from becoming a mainstream reality. Semi-autonomous driving systems are good, but there’s still a wide gulf between the tech today and our promised autonomous future. However, there’s one industry where the tech could take off – trucking. TuSimple is designing self-driving tech for semi-trucks, and last month the company completed a cross-country haul of watermelons with minimal human input.

The journey took the fruit from the Mexico-Arizona border city of Nogales to Oklahoma City in 14 hours and 6 minutes. According to TuSimple, that’s 42-percent quicker than a human driver who would have needed to stop after 11 hours of driving to rest for 10 hours due to safety regulations. TuSimple achieved such a quick delivery time because it didn’t need to follow the same regulations as a human-piloted truck.

 

The truck completed over 80 percent of the 951-mile journey on its own, with a human driver piloting the truck from Nogales to Tucson and again from Dallas to Oklahoma City for the final 200 miles. This quicker delivery time could be a massive benefit for the produce, which reached its destination the same day it departed from Nogales instead of having it arrive the following day by a human. This would mean fresher fruit for consumers and less waste for grocers and growers.

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While this technology could significantly improve efficiency, it will likely come at the cost of jobs, though such a transformation is still several years in the future. Self-driving trucks will need humans to act as safety and last-mile drivers for now; however, the company is planning to begin operating trucks without a safety driver by 2025. TuSimple already operates seven routes between Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, and Dallas, with plans to add routes to Houston and San Antonio, according to SingularityHub.com.  

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