Waymo officially expands self-driving effort into trucks
Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving company born out of Google X, is seen by many as the leader in the field of self-driving.
After focusing on autonomous passenger cars to soon launch a self-driving ride-hailing service, the company is now expanding the effort to trucks. The company has been known to have been working on a truck program since last summer, but they confirmed it today in a blog post.
[...] Now the program is expanding to Atlanta, Georgia, which they will make the home of Google's logistical operations. From there, Waymo will ship cargo to Google's data centers. They say that you will be able to see Waymo's blue trucks on the road as soon as next week as part of the pilot program
Also at TechCrunch, Ars Technica, and Reuters.
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Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover have inked a deal that will add tens of thousands of all-electric I-Pace SUVs to the Alphabet unit's growing lineup of self-driving taxis. The I-Pace, which made its global debut earlier this month, is not as much of a people-mover as Waymo's Chrysler Pacifica minivans, but it will serve as a more high-end ride for those willing to pay a premium for their driverless transportation.
The first prototype I-Pace with Waymo's self-driving technology will hit the road for public testing at the end of 2018, and officially become part of Waymo's commercial ride-hailing service starting in 2020. Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover's engineers will work in tandem to build these cars to be self-driving from the start, rather than retrofitting them after they come off the assembly line. Long-term, the companies say they plan to build up to 20,000 vehicles in the first two years of production, with the goal of serving a potential 1 million trips a day. It's unclear how much money would be trading hands under the deal.
Related: Waymo Orders Thousands More Chrysler Pacifica Minivans for Driverless Fleet
Google/Waymo Announces Testing of Self-Driving Trucks in Atlanta, Georgia
Walmart To Test Self-Driving Cars For Grocery Pickup Service
The future is here and soon it will be toting grocery shoppers around Phoenix. Walmart and Waymo — formerly Google's self-driving car project — announced on Wednesday the launch of a pilot program that will allow consumers to make their grocery pickups with the help of an autonomous vehicle.
The plan is simple. Participants in Waymo's "early riders" program will be able to take a driverless shuttle service to and from Walmart whenever they purchase groceries from Walmart.com using the retailer's online grocery pickup service.
Current "early riders" will receive incentives to participate in the pilot and the rides will be provided with no additional cost, Molly Blakeman, a Walmart spokesperson, said in an email to NPR. "Since the pilot is part of our Grocery Pickup program, personal shoppers pick customers' orders and bring them right out to the car ... in this case a Waymo self-driving car," she said.
Related: Google/Waymo Announces Testing of Self-Driving Trucks in Atlanta, Georgia
(Score: 1) by cocaine overdose on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:15PM (8 children)
Scrap for thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:29PM (7 children)
Scrap for thought. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by cocaine overdose on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:42PM (6 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @05:16PM (5 children)
And no one will use their qualcomm anymore. We can go back to calling in on every stop and hoping the dispatcher picks up at 3AM. Filling out our paper logs and all will be well.
If you think the drivers will have a say in what happens you have not paid attention. They will just put 'loaders' on the trucks and send them along with the truck. No driver needed. The drivers will not even be involved. Plan on it. Your job is going to be automated away. Probably within 15 years.
How do I know this? I converted your paper logs into digital ones. I am the one who made sure your hours were straight so your terminal did not get shut down. I interacted with your bosses. They *only* keep you around because you are necessary. The second you are not you are gone. Trust me they are planning on getting rid of you as soon as they can. A computer can drive 24/7/365. A driver can drive 11 per day. That is 13 where the truck is not rolling. If it is not rolling it is not making money. They can do 1.5 to 2x with auto drive vs a driver. There is 0% chance a company is going to turn that down.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 11 2018, @05:30PM (4 children)
A "loader", you say? WTF for? Automated forklifts will eliminate any need for a "loader".
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:51PM (2 children)
So when those forklifts inevitably tip over because their physics and control feedback engines were written by Indian coders, will they have a robotic voice that will squawk, "I've fallen...and I can't get up?!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @12:50AM
nah, the coding will be by Boston Robotics. When they start to trip and fall, they will just do a flip and land on their wheels again.
(Score: 3, Informative) by schad on Tuesday March 13 2018, @06:22PM
No. It turns out to be more cost-effective to leave them where they are and route the other automatic forklifts around them. Once all the loading docks are hopelessly blocked by broken auto-lifts, you simply bring in the robot bulldozers, level the entire facility, and rebuild it from premade modular components shipped with self-driving trucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:29PM
At first it will be loaders. Then nobody. As you correctly point out it will be fully automated. I do not see autoload of trucks, for now. As there is a bit of an art to it, and the problem is well into the NP hard domain. But yes eventually. Automatic driving is more along the lines of path following and do not hit things in the way (I am simplifying). More in the NP complete set of problems. We are using hyper maps to basically brute force the problem. So even auto driving is not a 'solved' problem.
If the loads are uniform then autoloading is a fairly simple problem and just a matter of getting the pallets the right size and distribution. In a LTL situation or something like a department store (walmart) the loads are not uniform and take a bit of work to keep the trucks from tipping over. Yet still pack them dense enough as to not waste space, weight and fuel.
My point was they will put loaders on the trucks at first. For something such as a day cab driver. That is basically what they do. They load/unload/drive. But if they do not have to drive the price the pay is significantly less. Think along the lines of your local KFC getting a shipment of chicken from its local distributor. There needs to be someone there to sign off on the bill of lading. Surprisingly enough people do steal from the backs of trucks all the time (including chicken). There will become a class of 'drivers'/'loaders' who live in their trucks. They do not stop ever. They just live out of the truck as if it were a home. The rules would allow it. As the driver is no longer in charge of the truck and can go off duty/sleeper. In the back of the truck. Pair drivers used to do this all the time with 5x4 or 4x4 hours (cant anymore because of the new rules). But if the guy is not driving he can basically be 'off'/'sb' all the time. The new rules discourage that behavior because of driving. But take driving out of the mix and as soon as they can work around it, they will. Like I said I made the rule system for trucks for a long time. I know the tricks. They are all part of my test cases. I probably even know a few most drivers dont.
Like you point out if they can crack loading automated then yeah the loaders are gone too. I do not see that quite as soon as auto driving as they are very different problem spaces. One is basically the traveling salesman problem the other is probably the bin/box packing problem (in at least 5 dimensions). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packing_problems [wikipedia.org] People have been working on that problem for a long time. As uniform packing is easier and faster for load/unload. But it is not in any way, solved. Also like I pointed out one of the problem spaces is not even a computer science thing. It is a regulatory thing (many of them). Which require people to be involved. That is changeable but not always due to political forces.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @05:37PM
now walk with both feet turned in and backwards!
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:23PM (4 children)
" ...Waymo will ship cargo to Google's data centers."
I thought Alphabet/Google was in the data business. You don't need trucks to haul data. Data transfer needs wires, fiber, micro-wave and wifi. So just what is A/G planning on hauling in these blue trucks?
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:27PM (1 child)
Hard drives, racks, cooling equipment, TPUs, solar panels, you name it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:55PM
The US Government doesn't want unemployed and being a drain on taxes...
Give it a few year and watch. The US already had concentration camps during WW2 for Japanese-Americans and to a lesser degree German-Americans. Next thing you know they will be doing the same for the un-rehireable... and we're all going to be unrehireable in another decade or two...
(Score: 5, Funny) by deimtee on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:49PM
Station wagons full of mag tapes.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:53PM
Knowing Google's leadership, probably human organs and underage prostitutes from Haiti and Ukraine.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:01PM (1 child)
That got to just totally rock to have enough ducats to just go out and buy a whole fleet of trucks
Many professional drivers long for they day when they can own their own truck - but only very rarely can they own more than one
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:06PM
You can get a good tractor for like $40k. My friend has two that are just sitting around, not being used or rented out.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by black6host on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:22PM (4 children)
With autonomous trucks and cars how long will it be before people start "trolling" them on the highways? Seriously, box one in and you control how fast it goes and possibly where just by herding the damn things.
I reckon someone will try it... It's not like your going to have some angry trucker running you off the road or anything. At least not once they get rid of the drivers in the cab that they'll use at first.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:40PM (2 children)
You can do the same thing with normal trucks today. The truck will do the same thing a driver should. Call for help. Oh and think you will get away? The truck will have high resolution pictures of you (as it needs that to drive). You say 'oh I will just drive off them' well it can follow you and wait for the police to show up. Or call for backup and have a small car follow you home and you would not even see them. Then park in front of your house and wait for the police to show up.
But yeah someone will do it. Then get arrested/fined. I have not looked into it but running cars/trucks off the road probably would be a crime (even today). Like many laws they engage after the deed is done. I am sure the guys running these companies will grab their local political flunky and write more laws to help them out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:58PM
And running the car off the road for yourself.
I've already heard from (mostly young) people in the automotive industry who do that for people who bought cars they either can't afford, or want to replace.
Now add in the bonus of using said car to ruin some autnomous cars before either leaving it abandoned, destroyed, or sent to a chop shop and you've just gotten paid twice or thrice for the same bit of work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @06:20AM
No you can't. Try that with most truckers and they will assume they are being hijacked and drive right through you.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Sunday March 11 2018, @10:54PM
https://xkcd.com/1958/ [xkcd.com]
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