Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by on Sunday June 04 2017, @02:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the software-doesn't-need-meth dept.

Google is testing a single self-driving commercial truck on a private track in California. The company may be looking to compete with Otto, a self-driving truck company that Uber acquired in August:

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle unit of Alphabet Inc., is testing a self-driving truck. The company, formerly known as Google's autonomous car venture, has installed its self-driving technology on a single Class 8 Peterbilt truck. Waymo has begun tests at a private track in California and plans road tests in Arizona later in the year. For now, it is keeping a driver behind the wheel at all times.

The company, which has millions of miles of on-road experience with autonomous cars, wants to learn how self-driving technology works in larger vehicles. Trucks in the heaviest Class 8 weight segment handle differently than passenger cars. They accelerate and brake more slowly. Their turning radius is far larger. They have giant blind spots. All of this requires that the sensors that provide data to the computer systems driving the truck be positioned differently than where they would be on a car.

"Self-driving technology can transport people and things much more safely than we do today and reduce the thousands of trucking-related deaths each year," Waymo said in a statement. "We're taking our eight years of experience in building self-driving hardware and software and conducting a technical exploration into how our technology can integrate into a truck."

Also at Reuters, TechCrunch, The Verge, and CNET.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:35AM (8 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:35AM (#520078)

    Car 1/4 mile in front of me does something stupid like have a blowout, big rig next lane over has sensors to react, I don't see anything and I get a big rig in my passenger seat.

    Speaking as a Californian, can we keep these test drives in Arizona? Please? Maybe in 5-10 years I'll feel comfortable with them on my road, but now? How about no.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:40AM (#520080)

    LUDDITE !

  • (Score: 2) by mendax on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:41AM (4 children)

    by mendax (2840) on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:41AM (#520081)

    I don't think I will ever be comfortable with a self-driving truck on the road. Not ever. I'm not comfortable with self-driving cars either. I'm not convinced that the AI will ever be good enough to make it a practical technology. Humans make mistakes for sure, but I'm far more comfortable with a human driver behind the wheel than a computer.

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:50AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:50AM (#520084)

      Yeah I know what you mean. I don't trust automatic elevators because you never know if it will stop at the floor of the button you pushed, and you never know if it will just open the doors between floors, and you never know when you call it whether the doors will open to an empty shaft. Without a genuine human elevator operator you never know what the computer will do. Bring back human elevator operators because those talking robot elevators are super creepy with the disembodied announcer voice to tell you which floor you might be on if the computer isn't malfunctioning.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @04:12AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @04:12AM (#520094)

        Nightmare fuel. Up and Out [youtube.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @11:37AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @11:37AM (#520174)

        There was one elevator operator left when I went to college. He was near retirement and I guess there was enough money to do the nice thing and keep him on staff. If you asked him about life, he would usually answer, "It has it's ups and downs."

        The next year he retired, and the elevator was converted to automatic. He was a lot smarter about scheduling than the auto elevator was...

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by srobert on Sunday June 04 2017, @07:43PM

      by srobert (4803) on Sunday June 04 2017, @07:43PM (#520337)

      "I'm not convinced that the AI will ever be good enough to make it a practical technology. Humans make mistakes for sure, but I'm far more comfortable with a human driver behind the wheel than a computer."

      I'm convinced of the opposite. Given another decade or two, the debate will be over whether or not humans should be trusted to have direct control of vehicles. At that time the statistics will be overwhelming, tens of thousands of deaths, injuries and property damage, caused by human drivers every year, vs. the dozen or so caused by errant algorithms. The insurance companies will respond by making human driving relatively unaffordable.
      The bigger problem is ... with that level of AI available, it won't just be drivers whose jobs are eliminated. Will we be going to a system of universal basic income to address the mass unemployment, or just turning ever increasing numbers of the working class into outcasts, or what?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:51AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:51AM (#520085)

    Speaking also as a Californian, a Self-Driving Truck doing the speed limit is going to cause traffic jams because everyone else is doing 90mph in a 65mph zone.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:56AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @03:56AM (#520087)

      Don't you idiot Californicators have truck lanes?