TuSimple drive autonomous level 4 trucks on US roads
Robert Brown at TuSimple is a great advocate for Level 4 autonomous vehicles and shows that Class 8 trucks are already working on public roads and, according to Rob, making truck operators money and that’s the key difference between running a passenger car and a commercial vehicle !!
He explains that TuSimple is a 3 year old company with around 400 employees and has a number of trucks on test including Peterbilts and LT Internationals operating in the South Western states of Nevada, Arizona and Texas. Level 4 autonomous trucks are in essence driverless ( they do have a driver for the test phase) having had the terrain previously digitally “mapped out”.
I love Rob’s comment that “they want to create the modern railroads of the future”! What a great way of explaining the transition we are going to be seeing in the road transport sector over the next 3-10 years where effectively that’s what the race to autonomy means.
Whilst TuSimple are concentrating on Level 4, he says Level 3 “will kill us all!” but only in of course in a joking fashion, and he understands the company’s working on Level 2.