Autonomous driving has been a dominant topic in the automotive industry for some time. And it is also becoming increasingly popular in freight mobility. But autonomous trucks bring both opportunities and challenges.
• Freight mobility revolution expected in the next decade
• Autonomous driving brings with it numerous opportunities and challenges
• Drivers will probably never be completely replaceable
KargoBot CEO: Freight mobility revolution is coming
KargoBot CEO Junqing Wei recently told CNBC’s East Tech West conference that big changes are coming to the freight mobility industry. The Chinese company KargoBot focuses on autonomous truck transport and has set itself the goal of “revolutionizing” freight transport. “We believe that in the next decade there will be a revolution in freight mobility and that logistics will be very different than today,” Wei said. KargoBot has now put more than 100 autonomous trucks on the roads of Mongolia and northern China. “They drive automatically and also deliver goods, in fact they already carry out commercial operations,” said the CEO. Overall, according to Wei, the logistics market is a trillion-dollar market. KargoBot, which was co-developed by the Chinese company Didi three years ago, focuses primarily on the delivery of raw materials for manufacturers and factories.
Autonomous driving in the test: challenges & opportunities
The company was able to learn a lot from the autonomous trips within Mongolia, as Wei continued. “There are routes that are perhaps 200 kilometers long, but over 1,000 trucks travel back and forth on the routes every day.” Overall, the area is very suitable for autonomous driving, as the routes tend to run in more rural areas and the likelihood of encountering complicated pedestrian crossings or vulnerable road users is significantly lower. However, challenges continue to be faced, Wei acknowledged. These include, for example, flocks of sheep and “huge amounts of dust on the road” that impair visibility. Toll stations are another problem. “When we first deployed the system… two to three years ago, we didn’t realize that these were the big challenges. But after this experience, we realized that having a self-driving truck on the road is a disaster “Stuck at the toll booth, right? They basically blocked the road,” the CEO recapitulated. Therefore, the company’s technology had to be optimized. “That’s why we invented a new way to operate the Level 4 system – we called it ‘hybrid driverless solution,'” Wei explained. “Level 4” refers to SAE International’s driving automation levels. At Level 4, automated driving features can drive a vehicle “under limited conditions and will only function when all required conditions are met,” according to CNBC. In contrast, at level 3, a human must take control of the driving if desired. “All of these Level 4 trucks will drive alone, and we sort of group them together and give the lead truck a human driver… who runs the entire fleet,” Wei explained of the process that combines technology and human intelligence.
As the ADAC also explained, the potential of autonomous trucks has also been being investigated in the USA for some time. For example, Jeremy Lucero, an experienced truck driver, has been working as an electric truck test driver for Torc Robotics for two years. As he explained, one of the biggest traffic challenges on freeways is lane changing. However, according to the ADAC, the advantages that autonomous trucks would bring are obvious: “Less tired drivers, slower and more evenly moving trucks that consume less fuel increase traffic flow and efficiency.” From 2025, the first trucks without drivers are expected to be on public roads in the United States. These will then be delivered to customers shortly afterwards.
And in Germany, too, people are already venturing into autonomous trucks. According to Golem, the truck manufacturer MAN is expected to test its first autonomous vehicle on German highways this year. The Atlas-L4 is intended to show “that the use of Level 4 automated and therefore driverless vehicles on the highway is feasible,” according to the company. However, there is still a safety driver on board during the tests who can intervene at any time. Autonomous trucks would offer the logistics industry some opportunities. Head of Development Frederik Zohm explained that more efficiency and less traffic jams could be achieved on the roads. In addition, automation concepts could also be used to counteract the prevailing driver shortage. According to the Federal Association of Freight Transport Logistics (BGL), there is a shortage of around 100,000 truck drivers in Germany, around 400,000 across Europe and around 80,000 truckers are being sought in the USA, according to the American Trucking Associations. By 2030 the number is expected to double to 160,000.
Drivers remain indispensable
However, the BLG is still cautious about autonomous LWKs, according to the ADAC. “Autonomous driving will not make the truck driver superfluous any more than the autopilot has made the pilot superfluous,” explains BGL board spokesman Professor Dirk Engelhardt. “Drivers remain indispensable as they not only drive, but also accompany the goods entrusted to them. They can intervene in events that are not foreseen by technology.”
KargoBot CEO Wei also has a similar opinion: “However, we have found that the real goal, the right goal, in autonomous driving should not be to 100 percent replace human drivers or operators. It is actually about their skills “I think these are the big lessons we’ve learned and we believe this is the right path.”
Editorial team finanzen.net