While many details remain unconfirmed, CNBC is reporting that Amazon is using self-driving trucks to deliver cargo on public roads. An Amazon-branded truck has been spotted driving on I-10. It’s outfitted with the Embark autonomous driving system.
The story first broke when a Reddit user photographed the truck and shared images of it online. In the image, an Amazon-branded trailer is being pulled by a tractor outfitted with Embark’s self-driving kit.
Unlike some other companies who are developing self-driving trucks, Embark is selling kits which allow existing semis to be outfitted with the hardware needed to turn them into autonomous-capable vehicles.
Embark systems are reportedly only capable of Level 2 autonomy. This allows a vehicle to be controlled by the autonomous system while on highways in favorable conditions. It is very likely there was still a trucker in the driver’s seat.
CNBC says that neither Amazon nor Embark would confirm whether or not they are currently working together.
“Embark moves freight for a number of major companies on the I-10, however we cannot discuss any company specifically as our relationships are confidential,” Embark CEO Alex Rodrigues told CNBC.
Amazon gave a similarly opaque answer.
“We are always innovating and working with innovative companies to improve the customer experience and safety of our team,” said an Amazon spokesperson. “We think successful over-the-road autonomy will create safer roadways and a better work environment for drivers on long-haul runs.”
Source: cnbc, dailymail, seekingalpha, reddit
Someone’s gotta haul that dirt cheap freight. It’s likely there was a driver in the seat? This is some bang up reporting. This article was written after someone saw an Embark truck parked with an Amazon trailer and took a picture.
Embark is demonstrating their overpriced cruise control which increases the truck’s overall operating cost with little return. Drivers using the system say that they are already well rested being on Elogs so the system hasn’t made a difference.
This is all R&D if Embark is being so secretive rest assured they have made the drivers sign no disclosure agreements therefore getting the real beef on what they are doing is t going to be easy. These Companies are sinking big bucks into this autonomous vehicle crap and when they’ve perfected it they will grease the pockets of politicians and lobby the sh** out them the laws will change and just as many technologies autonomous will start with trucks and filter to cars.
The basic history of commercial versus personal automotive advancements have shown one definative thing throughout its history. Commercial automotive and transportation industries always talk a big game on getting a leg up, they do try to there fullest extent this is true. Although no matter how hard they try on until it is well tested and proven on the level of a personal vehicle the powers that be will not bring themselves to allow it at any major quanity for commercial use. In otherwords if uber and its partners cant sucsessfully get go karts to not get people killed for a length of time do you think they would mass automate big trucks, train, planes, etc if a 1634 lbs prius knock off cant yet be automated for longer than a month without taking a life? Food for thought.
🙂
Can it fuel the truck? Can it plot an alternative route in the event of an emergency? Watch out for emergency vehicles on the shoulder? Can this truck make a split second evasive maneuver that can save lives? What does it do when there is an accident on the highway that requires taking instructions from emergency personnel? If one of these trucks kills somebody I hope the courts break it off in Amazon’s tail pipe.
I have not completely accepted the idea yet but you using current issues to evaluate a future technology. Most of these problems are addressable. It wasn’t long ago when no one pumped their own fuel and in some states they still don’t. WAZE is a simple commuter app and it already alerts me when there is an accident and I should take an alternate route or there is a car parked on the shoulder. No it is not perfect but it is just an app and not designed to the rigorous specs an autonomous vehicle would need. This technology will address all of these issues before anything is put on the road. And if one of these trucks does kill someone, yes there will be a lawsuit, just like there is when a human driver kills someone.
I think that is very dangerous. I drive a living and , yes , sometimes you have to drive on snow.. I have the lane assistance on my truck, side to side and front. One thing I noticed, it do not work on snow.. once I think that very dangerous, and , if the truck can’t drive on snow, that freight is going more late then what it is, when a professional is pulling it.. I seen on videos where malfunction has happened, and life was lost because of it..
it’s been about 20 years since I last was in an elevator that was manually operated by a person
learn how to surf the wave of the future folks, or drown.
Nobody has drowned yet and you need to learn to discern when they’re trying to brainwash you.
An up and down elevator on tracks doesn’t even come close to an 18 wheeler on a busy highway.
Their all idiots 😡. But let me see one and you will see my big crash .. lol..
They’re. Just saying.
You got er brother!
When they make 80k elevators that blindside around buildings, park in oncoming traffic to open their doors to get on a ridiculously small dock, beat tandem pins in, etc holler at me. I’m not even sratching the surface here. This 11 hours of sitting is the mantra pushed but not what a majorty of truck drivers experience.
Excellent points and as you said barely scratched the surface. My friend keeps saying what am I going to do when autonomous trucks come out. I will do the same thing pilots do when they come out with a plane that can fly itself…. Oh wait or maybe the same thing a conductor will do when they come out with a train that can drive itself… Oh wait. A Cruise ship that can dock itself…oh wait. Seriously it will be like said in an earlier comment, cruise control that will stear for a bit like a Cadillac but nothing more.
Exactly!
Pretty sure that you still have to push a button…
That there is no longer someone else in the elevator to push the button for you, does not really constitute automation. This is more of a full service/self service example… and arguably, full service elevators were never necessary, at all.
Good point old man, but running something up and down a shaft is substantially different to driving a loaded rig about 8-1/2 feet X 75′ long, from NYC to LA no hands! Or with nobody 🙂
lol ..a PERSON still pushes the buttons , surfboy
I’m with you, Laz. It’s gonna happen. When was the last time someone used a rotary phone? Or washed clothes in a washtub? The future looks brighter if we embrace it with positivity.
yeah, AN ELEVATOR, attach your brain to your head
I’m moving to China so I can keep working
Hey everyone, look! I let go of the steering wheel for awhile. That makes my truck semi-autonomous with zero added cost.
Haha!! Right!!
You drive like I do, lol! 😂😂😂
Dateline: Amazonia, VA January 20, 2021
Earlier today the first unmonitored driverless trucks were placed into service. In other news, a driverless truck experienced an uncommanded hard right turn into a school bus, killing 17. No one was charged.
and then the lawyers have many many options for lawsuits… code writers, computer builders, hard ware companies, soft ware companies and the te list goes on and on…. money money and more money! Happy days in the lawyer world… 🤔
The machines called “humans” Must be Eliminated! Cybernetics are the future! Meet your newest President Mr. Terminator Trump III!
The only AI trucks that will ever work will need to be cybernetic. Like all trucks have been since there have been trucks. Machinery cannot perform in real time as fluidly as a human being can. The half step automated truck I am driving now is clunky and slow and most of the time it’s a struggle just to keep it out of it’s own way and on the road. These things exist only to keep wages low and drivers less certain of their actual control over trucking. What I am saying to you is, you might own it but I and others like me control it. We can take away your rights of ownership any time we choose to. Keep pushing in the wrong direction long enough and find out what you own. Trucking is dead.
Good point. Why do trains still require an engineer and crew? Why do commercial airplanes need two pilots that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to train for the first 1200 hours, and then hundreds of thousands of dollars more for continued training?
My best pal is a training manager and a commercial pilot. He recently acquired an Airbus certification to test airplanes that cost close to half a million dollars, of course, his airline paid this money.
This in an age where airplanes are highly automated and have been able to navigate, correct, take off and land for decades now.
So why do they still use two pilots? Why do they use any pilots at all?
I am sure we will reach a perfect automation future someday if Earth is capable of surviving us, but it will take decades to adapt the infrastructure, the laws, and so many other things. I am pretty sure we are looking into maybe another generation to get there.
And by getting there I mean the technology, laws and society will take a lot longer.
With that being said, I would not recommend a 3rd grader to think of a career in trucking unless it would be some type of highly specialized cargo, like heavy haul, odd shapes and so on.
Well, has to be safer than that Russian euro trash driving it there.
In 2025 the Skynet self driving truck became self-aware and ate Jeff Bezos.
17 million people are live in NY City area 25% of them working in the transportation (BUS,Trucks,Trains,Taxi….) where they and there family will go???
And this is only NYC…
We now have the crash mitigation system on our Volvo. It is amazingling accurate and equally annoying. I embrace the new technology but I do fear we (truckers) will become obsolete before we even know what hit us. These companies are being very secretive for a reason.
Humans need to drive trucks. End of story. AI or machines will never be able to do the job. Rest assured, your job is safe.
Think of it like this. Over 30 years ago an airplane could fly and land itself, there are still pilots. A cruise ship could dock itself quite a bit better than a tug and crew but both still exist at every port in the world. Trains have condupctors and they are monitored down to the inch by a central control station and still have a conductor and engineer on every single one. The list goes on, yes autonomy can actually do it better in some cases but semi drivers will be replaced after Pilots, ship captians, train conductors, etc.
All you drivers that say everyone is mistreating you , no worries all your problems will soon be over. ALL the driver jobs will soon be long gone. Who wants to pay someone to hold a steering wheel 11 hours a day ? Hope your cracking the books to learn a new trade.
Lol, sounds like someone who can not drive. It is ok go to your safe space the professional drivers will be around for a long time to deliver your goods for you.
Bobbie must be one that mistreats drivers…………………..
Or he sits behind a computer all day
Surgeons as, well, why pay someone for thousands of hours in school, just to hand pills to you, when a robot can do it for next to nothing!?
Lol, sounds like someone who can not drive. It is ok go to your safe space the professional drivers will be around for a long time to deliver your goods for you.
lol bobbiedomas , you’re wrong
Awesome can’t wait to get hit by one of those collect a lot of money a perfect disaster waiting to happen believing that technology is truly the answer
I live in Buffalo Gov Cuomo made it a criminal charge for truckers to drive during a driving ban. I could not see these trucks operating in the winter at all let alone during a snow storm. Who do they go after with no driver? Amazon?
Bobbie, one satisfaction I will get after a robo truck replaces me, will be seeing you at the unemployed line begging for handouts as your job whatever it is, will soon also become obsolete. AI will replace most jobs we see today. Good luck with your retraining.
Exactly… if they can do what I’ve been doing for 15 years safely and almost 1.5 million miles… no job is safe!
Without jobs and a purpose society will collapse on itself!
Before they put drivers to the way side, Why don’t they try what is shown on INTERSTELLAR? If they can take care of a 500 acre farm without hitting the only tree or the fence then MAYBE we can try an on road experiment.
I am actually kinda okay with an autopilot system that could skip the long middle journey when the conditions are good. However that’s as far as it should go. You still need a trained human who can determine at a moment’s notice what to do and not to do in adverse conditions, and of course city and dock navigation. My truck has adaptive cruise control and braking, and I’ll be honest, it’s turned me into a steering wheel holder because that’s all you gotta do. However I also understand that it’s technology and tools, and it’s not perfect so I do not solely rely on it. But it does come in handy, especially when you are driving in blizzard conditions and the radar can see into the white out further than you can, so you can spot and follow at asafe distance the snow covered vehicle hidden in the blizzard, instead of rear-ending it. Also it’s handy in the fog and blinding rain.
But one thing I learned, autonomous vechicles will not work, especially in snowy climates. No road lines, and sensors get obscured by snow buildup. And last I knew, more than half the country is covered by snow at some point in the year.
Finally! Someone else that understands the beauty of the current radar systems!
They have annoying issues, but I love mine!
(20 plus year “real” truck driver with experience in most truck types, from heavy haul to dry van, and while I miss an 18 speed sometimes, when I am steering through heavy traffic effortlessly, I love advances in technology! Lol)
Amen! I think we will reach some type of autonomy, but full driverless trucks… never! Last time I flew, I still had a Pilot, that airport was built before I was born and the one I landed was too…. but they still needed a Pilot to make sure we got up and down! 🤔
I guess Mack has it all figured out. Bobbie and I are engineers in the autonomous transportation research sector. See ya, “driver”. Oh and, yes, what a great skill that is: “Driving”. Impressive!
Come on Walton, step up and take the bet. Go get a 10-15 stop furniture load, and start at the Rent a Center off Bobby Jones Parkway in North Augusta. Go around back with a 53’ trailer and your autonomous truck. Oh, and bring a crane to get the truck and trailer lifted out because you won’t make it out. However, I did with my lowly driving skill.
Head up to DC and swing out across a 6 lane highway to back into the furniture store. Then go down to Kenner, La and blindside off Airline Hwy between the telephone poles while the light turns red. Oh wait, you autonomous engineers already know all these caveats most drivers deal with right? LOL, you’re a joke.
As a computer expert then you should know a good hacker can
disrupt a whole system cyber attacks are real and a good place
to cause havoc kinda like 911 with a virus.
I wonder how AI trucks will deal with having four or five flat tires.
They got that all figured out don’t ya know sensors will cover
everything it’ll change it’s own tires.
This is a total loss for trucking, and for humanity, giving jobs to robots ! Nothing else to do but turn to crime! With these cheap freight prices how are you guys surviving? I parked my truck since December 2018 , I refuse to haul cheap but i see alot of you haul for less than 2per mile, for instance baltimore to nyc rates now are 700$ when they should be 1400!! With the tolls fuel your left with 200 , how are drivers pulling and still surviving?
That’s all in the near future until …
… a situation occurs and they can’t point the finger on it! This technology is not bulletproof yet. But they working on it. The day will come when the demand for truck drivers will be over. Get a job in a factory in which they produce these driving robots.
The day these are in full motion is the day me an my family stay off the road.
Stop hauling their freight we’ll see how fast them automated tin cans will move
all them loads, amazon sucks cheap freight no better than walmart two of the
biggest made in china junk importers there are.
Does it have to go through weight stations? Can it be pulled over by law enforcement? Will it pull itself over & stop if it has a light out?
Only a few dummies will fall into this scheme and regret it. In the meantime the wise will keep living using technology and not being used by it. Humans like being in control and no autonomous anything will ever be successful, maybe just to assist.
I’ll adto this. I’m a truck driver now, but formally an IT tech and computer programmer. 10 years in slammer killed that career (Don’t ask. It was so stupid I can’t believe it was me).
Anyway, I can tell you this about autonomous vehicles. It’s not that the vehicle can drive itself that will make it safer (more dangerous actually without a human); or that the autononomy will end your job.
What will do those things are two advancements to the highway system.
1. Automobiles will be equipped with a wireless network and computer system that will allow all vehicles within a certain proximity of each other to communicate. Every car (or truck) will know where the others are, when they are about to brake, when they are braking and how hard, when one needs to change lanes, etc. They may even share their destinations so they all know how to make a way for each other.
This of course will require ALL the cars to be equipped this way. To do so will require law changes. It will require time. You job is not over any time soon.
2. A highway network infrastructure that all these computer cars can talk to. They can gather information about other cars outside of their wireless range, feed information about their self into the network, get weather conditions and other information that the state puts on the car network. They will know when an emergency vehicles are coming before you can even hear the sirens.
When the government builds this network and mandates that all cars be able to access it and each other, then all driving jobs will be obsolete.
You will not have to drive to the store. Just send your car to get your online order. It will be loaded then come back home.
Bet that some hacker kid will be there reporting fake vehicles in inconvenient places all over the highway, to cause accidents and stop traffic. ADS-B operates similarly on the nation’s air travel system, and hackers are already looking at that system.
You won’t use a car, probably will be drones doing deliveries of small shipments like takeout, more effective, and efficient! You will probably not own a car, you will have ad free transportation, which won’t be free, or with ads, and you get a free ride. I’ll keep my Schwinn around just in case I’m still around!
This guy gets it, were way off from total take over it can get you
from address to address but it can’t get you in the door, I like the
asist mode there are some things it can see that you can’t, I also
believe it should be an option.
They will still have to have a driver in the seat so they have someone to blame when it all goes haywire and someone gets killed
When AI trucks take over this industry I will sell my truck and go to law school. They will need so many new lawyers to handle all the law suits! I want to see a self driven truck read one of the road closed exit now signs or come down snowshoe in the winter. I just saw a picture of Uber AIcar on its side. I’ve driven since 1982 and never put a vehicle on its side.
Pretty cool but I can never imagine one of these crossing snow covered mountain passes or even a blizzard across the plains. In a perfect world this is feaseable but the world is far from perfect.
They need to invest more in robot trailers and fillets that can dock and navigate yards without a tractors. and robot lumpers. Sucks for all the third world imported drivers that ruined this business long ago. Not like actual skilled drivers haven’t had plenty of warning this was coming and developed and adapted .
Where can I buy one of these self-driving trucks? I want to nap in the bunk while it get’s me close to my destination…get my beauty sleep…trust me when I say “I need it!!!”
Impossible how are you going to inspect the truck during a breakdown, what about a blown tire you know how that is. it gets out of control even for a driver to steer, and you are telling me this bozo boloni is going to drive it Self home.
Come on get real.
Good point old man, but running something up and down a shaft is substantially different to driving a loaded rig about 8-1/2 feet X 75′ long, from NYC to LA no hands! Or with nobody 🙂
I have seen that truck quite a bit its house cameras mounted on top of the truck not a self driving truck
The robot trucks will probably be safer then most of you drivers
And a box of rocks may be smarter than you. How bout we make a bet. Send Embark to Ashley Furniture Distribution. Have it pick up a 12 stop load. I’ve got $1000 that says it can’t navigate behind all the shopping centers and cars. Care to take that bet?
If not we could go even simpler and have it load cows, walking floor trailers, open top, dump trailer, tanker.
What will happen to preventable accidents? If a computer is better than a human being and the computer messes up, how can the driver be responsible if he is by definition less capable?
The programmers will get rich, then poor again with the lawsuits that pop up!
Saw lots of gelled trucks this week in iowa when I realized that the students are not learning important stuff from these cdl mills.
How is this legal? With no notice to the public.
How long have cell phones been used? Here 20 years later I still drive through hundreds of no cell tower areas a month. I don’t think this network of self driving vehicles is going to be usable for at least the same amount of time. Only in certain exact areas will it be feasible. Also, can a self driving truck work in rain and snow conditions ? No chance with all it’s sensors not working properly. What happens when a rock kicks up and breaks a sensor. What happens when a truck needs a set of chains on. Can the computer drive in icy conditions? Who’s going to throw the chains and straps? How is the computer going to know when a load is coming unsecured. How about the kids having fun start swerving into it and hard braking in front of it to mess with it. Who’s going to fuel them? I have sensors in my new semi that break down and put my rig out of commission regularly, add 50 sensors and find out how often they go down. I’m not worried at all. I’m 52 years old and will be retired in 14 years so no way self driving trucks replace me in that time frame. Few other things, how will it deal with a flat tire, can it see a moose on the side of the road ahead and slow down in time just in case it decides to cross, we all know a truck doing 60 ain’t gonna stop on a dime. What happens when a disabled truck with no operator is going to get robbed? Computers can be programmed to do certain things and react to certain conditions but they can’t think or come up with a problem solving idea. The very limited areas and jobs a self driving truck could do are extremely limited. They will be horribly expensive to service and maintain and wages for truckers are bottom basement right now. Bottom line is I wouldn’t worry about being replaced until robotrucker is introduced and we will all be dead by that time.
That reminds me of how many times my satilite radio looses its signal on major highways through cities. Not to mention they cant keep the lines painted on most of the roads let alone when there is a swerve for construction. I just spent 2 days driving on snow covered highways.
Hundreds of no cell service places a month?? You need a new service provider
I got one of them auto braking systems n my truck. When u start going under a bridge at 65mi hr during daylight it will break check the puck out of ya everytime. ( guess it’s the shadow it detects) it really puckers my azz when I got a 48000# suicide coil on. This new tech is going to kill somebody
First driverless truck i see is getting run into the ditch.
” In the year 2525, if man is still alive, “
If one of these trucks injures or kills any of my family Jeff Bezos will need all his billions to pay for his greed.
No more buying from Amazon, the rich want robots well they can have them.
If you read the article it says all it can do is run the truck down the interstate when the weather is good. A steering wheel holder, nothing more.
It’s not capable of any of the thousands of other things required to get the truck from point A to point B. Not to mention the duties out of the truck. I think it will be a long while before truckers will be replaced.
Sometimes directions are not clear to deliver sometimes. Watch out fr those low bridges, Ouch…How about not updated GPS system fro work zones, watch for those workers…Good luck in about 50 years when I retire I might see one on the road….
I would love the idea of going down the road flipping a switch to autopilot
especially on long hauls when there’s nothing but miles of nothing, if or when
a problem arises the computer will alert you, what I like about this is any
time you want to sleep or take a nap you can at any time with no lost time the
truck keeps moving you keep making money this would eliminate time keeping
you log in only when you work that would be automatic when you switch off,
sensors would track conditions traffic,weather snow or ice,rain, any mechanical
issues, blow outs, weight, this would be sweet flip it on auto get up make you a
sandwich or a drink watch a lil tv talk on the phone, there’s no way it could
perform all the duties of the job but could you imagine the possibilities.
I do all that stuff now , without auto pilot .. not much getting up but I can reach my fridge , microwave, piss jug all from the drivers seat … and the tv is playing on my phone almost all day
It might be ok along some stretches of interstate to give the driver a break . Would that count as off duty time or just on duty not driving ?
If you don’t like trucks on the highways stop buying stuff and quit you job
Just hope they get them all working before all owner operators shut down ,cause Black Smoke Matters is real!!!!
I would like to see what’s going to happen when someone hacks into the system that’s running the truck it is going to be a disaster.
They will hack into the system using a drone to Hi Jack that truck .
They will shut the truck down and hold the truck hostage until someone pays the hacker off. Just like they did with personal computers and cell phones.
How can a man who is imperfect make something that is perfect, so whatever he make is not going to be perfect no matter how many robots he make still need someone to turn it on and repair it
And with a truck has so many problems already from changing wiper blades to lowering landing gear too many things to replace
So what’s going to happen when that truck gets pulled over for a roadside inspection?, who’s getting the citation for any violations found? The person inside the truck will say, “hell I wasn’t driving”
The first thing all drivers and prospective drivers of over-the-road freight should be is: turn down all offers to sit in the passenger seat and be a part of this driverless system!! So if it snows or rains or any other condition that requires a professional driver to take over, this system will fail. But you know, a newbie driver without a job will jump right in and say they’ll do it. What a bunch of idiot picks to try and make this work. Real people will be needed to fuel the truck, maneuver in tight situations, fill tires with air etc, etc…….I personally won’t have any part in this b.s., and I sure hope the remaining drivers in this COUNTRY will think the same!!!!!!!!
As soon as I saw Reddit I stopped reading. I find it suspect at best that no picture is included in this sighting. No cell phone was available to take a pic of this in 2019? Yeah right. I came from the old school where certain jobs REQUIRE a human being and driving a truck or car will ALWAYS be one of those jobs in my book.
Amazon is training all of their dock workers to be truck drivers. They are on the clock and getting free truck driving training at local schools. Then they will fire all the companies or owner operators that haul for them. I’m in class with several and more come each week, them and other trucking companies get first priority. They will have automatic trucks, less accidents, and they will save money with team drivers, so the loads don’t stop for 8 hours of sleep.
Someone still has to slide the tandems somebody still has open the back door and not every business is backup friendly do you still have the waiting game and individuals telling you where to go with voice recognition everything it might be a little difficult