Your packages could be delivered from a self-driving truck
For the next two weeks, package deliveries in the Southwest could get to your doorstep by way of robo-truck.
Starting Tuesday, self-driving truck company TuSimple is taking on a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) route between the national postal service's Phoenix and Dallas distribution centers – that's more than 1,000 miles the mail trailers cover throughout Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
Several autonomous trucks will run for 22 hours, including night driving, with a safety engineer and driver on board for five round-trip delivery hauls. These types of routes (long-haul with quick turnaround) usually require a two-member driving team since it goes overnight.
TuSimple is a Chinese startup that started testing in Arizona a few years ago and is slated to have 50 autonomous trucks in its fleet by next month. Now it hopes to show with the USPS pilot that its robo-trucks can handle these labor-intensive routes. Then USPS (or other trucking partners) can keep shorter, closer-to-home routes for human drivers. Those routes tend to be more complicated and require more nuance.
USPS could cut down costs if it can deploy trucks for longer hours, especially on routes that are normally human intensive. Studies point to a possible truck driver shortage in coming years with an aging workforce, especially for long-haul trips.
Last week, TuSimple swatted away rumors that e-commerce giant Amazon was looking to acquire the self-driving delivery company. Chinese media had reported possible negotiations. An Amazon spokesperson emailed Mashable that the company doesn't comment on rumors or speculation.
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Meanwhile in Sweden, driverless truck deliveries from Einride started last week on public roads there -- with a very futuristic look.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
