A Few Hundred Driverless Trucks

There are some self-driving trucks on the road by widescale deployment still seems to be 3-5 years away. There are publically traded self-driving truck technology such as Aurora Innovation (AUR), Embark Technology (EMBK) and TuSimple (TSP). Privately held self driving truck companies are like Gatik, Plus, Torc Robotics and Kodiak Robotics.

Gatik specializes in shorter routes, including metropolitan areas. Gatik moves goods between micro-fulfillment centers, smaller distribution centers and drop-off locations such as retail storefronts and other convenient local pickup points where consumers can access their goods. Many of Gatik routes at the moment are in the 50- to 75-mile range.

Gatik now operates fully driverless trucks for Walmart (WMT) in Arkansas and Canadian food and pharmacy retailer Loblaw in Ontario.

The company operates about 45 light- and medium-duty box trucks for customers in North America. It expects to have more than 100 by the end of 2023.

Federal law limits trucker drive time to 11 hours before taking a 10-hour break. Autonomous trucks aren’t subject to the same limitations and can operate 24/7. They only need to stop to refuel and get their sensors wiped clean. One-day mileage for long-haul trucks can increase about 125% using autonomous technology.

Embark and TuSimple have had significant layoffs.

Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.

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