Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving company, announced a new pilot program that’s located in Atlanta to further test its autonomous technology. Starting next week, Waymo’s self-driving trucks will begin hauling cargo to Google’s data centers. The trucks will not be completely alone because there will be highly trained drivers in the cabs, just in case anything goes wrong.
For this pilot program, Waymo is teaching its software, that has become accustomed to driving cars, how to manage the increased challenge of managing a truck. It’s doing this through the same way you’d each anyone with passenger car driving experience on how to drive a semi truck.
While Waymo is starting a new pilot program for self-driving truck technology, it’s definitely isn’t the only company doing so. Embark has teamed up with Frigidaire and Ryder to deliver smart fridges. To put it into perspective, one of Embark’s trucks has already completed a trip from California to Florida. Last week, Uber announced that its autonomous trucks have been operating in Arizona for a couple months now. Otto, the company Uber acquired in 2016 and has been the center of attention in the lawsuit between Waymo and Uber. Both companies recently came to a settlement and are currently discussing a potential partnership.
