In what appears to be the first-ever cross-country trip of its kind, an autonomous truck has driven 2,800 miles from Tulare, California to Quakertown, Pennsylvania to deliver 40,000 pounds of butter in three days [1].

 The self-driving truck was deployed by Plus.ai, a robotics startup based in Cupertino, Silicon Valley. Founded in June 2016 by a group of Stanford Ph.D. classmates, the company specializes in developing autonomous trucking technology for commercial businesses.

The trip to the Land O’Lakes headquarters was monitored by an on-board engineer who noted the functioning of the system and a backup driver who was there in case of any “disengagements”, which were said to never have occurred. The truck traveled just before Thanksgiving through Interstates 15 to 70 and while it made scheduled stops during which system reports were taken, it drove itself most of the time.

According to Shawn Kerrigan, co-founder and chief operating officer of the company, their system uses cameras, sensors, and advanced laser technology to determine distances, obstacles, and weather conditions.

“We wanted to demonstrate the safety, reliability, and maturity of our overall system,” Kerrigan said in an interview.

Cross-country trips are still a few years away

While the company had a successful test run, Kerrigan thinks it’s still a few years out before their autonomous freight trucks would take over the roads and highways. Plus.ai has been delivering goods to several locations locally but this is their first cross-country trip in partnership with a top company.

Land O’Lakes was impressed by the truck’s performance and cost-efficiency at delivery. According to a spokesperson for the company, Yone Dewberry, there’s always a higher demand for butter at the end of the year and a truck such as Plus.ai’s would solve a lot of problems.

“To be able to address this peak demand with a fuel- and cost-effective freight transport solution will be tremendously valuable to our business,” Dewberry said.

Several other companies in the past decade have picked up the pace in the self-driving truck industry. In 2018, an autonomous non-freight truck deployed by Embark Trucks completed a 5-day 2,400 cross-country mile trip. 

“When the (freight) trucks can go a long distance, that’s when there will be significant ROI” on the autonomous technology“, said Dan Ives, MD of equity research for Wedbush Securities. He explains that large-scale use of autonomous technology would be adopted first by the trucking industry, although aviation experts seem to have their sights set on self-driving planes soon. He predicts that freight deliveries by air would most likely be tested out in the course of the next two years, with commercialization beginning in 2022.

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