the first Self-Driving Truck Delivery

Beer Here!

Uber's self-driving truck division, Otto, recently completed the world's first autonomous truck delivery, shipping 50,000 cans of Budweiser across Colorado from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. The only caveat is that the fully Level 4 retrofit was only engaged while on the interstate. Otto's self-driving strategy is to leave the local driving - the few miles to and from the interstate - to humans. While on the highway, Otto's engineer was freed up for paperwork, exercise, or sleep. Otto's six-truck fleet is still focused on smoothing out the ride and tweaking its software, but the technology is capable of being retrofitted onto any truck with an automatic transmission.

Otto, which Uber bought last summer for roughly $680 million, doesn’t want to put  anyone out of work. Its technology works only on the highway, where it doesn’t have to deal with tricky variables like jaywalking pedestrians, four-way stops, or kids on bicycles. It maintains a safe following distance, and changes lanes only when absolutely necessary. And unlike Tesla’s Autopilot Otto’s system offers true ‘Level 4’ autonomy. Once the rig hits the interstate, it is entirely capable of the job at hand, letting the human deal with paperwork, thumb her phone, or even catch a few Z’s.

 “The technology is ready to start doing these commercial pilots,” says Otto co-founder Lior Ron. “Over the next couple of years, we’ll continue to develop the tech, so it’s actually ready to encounter every condition on the road.” For the foreseeable future, the driver will remain an essential part of the system. But with Otto, they can can do something other than deal with the stress of driving. Like practice yoga.