The Path to Safe Deployment of Autonomous Trucks
By: Plus Team
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Trucking, Autonomous Vehicles, Automated Truck

Craig: Tell us a little about Plus and what you are doing in terms of the autonomous industry.

Shawn: We started back in 2016, focused on applying autonomous technology to the commercial freight market. We think there’s tremendous potential in the space to improve safety, reduce costs, reduce CO2 emissions, and drive overall economic efficiency. We have seen this year how critical freight is to our overall country — what we eat and use every day is brought to us through a truck. This is a market where autonomous technology can be applied to make a big difference. With that in mind, we’ve assembled a team of experts in artificial intelligence, automotive safety, and across all the different domains, to put together a product and focus on bringing autonomy into the Class 8 trucking market.

Craig: We’ve heard a lot about autonomy, which is a very polarizing conversation in the trucking industry. Can you talk a little bit about why you are optimistic about the near-term delivery of these vehicles?

Shawn: Autonomous trucking technology is going to bring tremendous value in terms of improving safety, reducing fuel costs and CO2 emissions. Getting to full Level 4 autonomy is a long term problem, and we’ve broken that down into two steps.

Phase one is to bring self-driving technology out there in “driver-assist” mode and demonstrate what it can do, and to provide safety and efficiency while delivering value to drivers. We think that applying this type of advanced autonomy technology into vehicles today is something where you can improve safety, fuel efficiency, and the overall comfort and driving experience for the driver. We’ve been working with top fleets, OEMs and Tier-1s to bring that to bear. While we are a California-based company, we’ve taken a global perspective to the roll-out of this technology. We partner with FAW, the largest truck OEM in China and the largest producer of heavy trucks in the world by volume, to mass-produce the first automated trucks in China.

Phase two plan in the longer term is once you’ve proven out the efficiency and safety of the system, take a look at operating domains where the technology is robust enough that it can operate without a driver.

Craig: When will we be able to see a Level 4, a truly driverless vehicle, on our nation’s highways?

Shawn: Our company will have a driver-in product on the market next year. In terms of the timeline to get to the initial operation of full Level 4, which means driverless within some constrained environment, we think it will be around 2024. That’s a function of a lot of different factors — our software and technology needs to be ready; OEMs, Tier 1 components, and regulatory pieces should be ready, and so on.

Craig: It’s amazing when we think about how that’s just around the corner in terms of technology evolution. Is your expectation that when we see Level 4 autonomous [trucks], the driver is still in the vehicle for a period of time? Is there a transition period?

Shawn: We see the transition period part of our rollout in terms of starting with a driver-in product to assist drivers. The technology is kind of the same in many ways to perceive and operate with the environment around it.

When we think about the types of problems we have to solve in order to deploy a fully driverless vehicle, we see a few different things — We need to make sure that we’ve actually designed a system that is safe and robust enough to handle all the conditions it might see; then we also have to be able to prove that it is safe enough to do that. To do both of those, we think it’s really important that the technology is out there [in the real world], and it has really substantial miles under its belt to prove that it actually works and demonstrate that it’s able to handle those conditions. By that we think on the order of billions of miles. This is not a small effort, and it’s going to be continuous development and refinement as we work our way to that.

Craig: Talk a little bit about Plus’ business model and where you are different from other competitors that may not have as much opportunity for success.

Shawn: Plus is different in the core business model and technology approach.

Business Model. Plus is partnering with large OEMs and top fleets to bring products to market that they can deploy within the context of their existing businesses. So we’re not looking to build our own operational fleet. We’re a technology enabler that’s bringing this type of technology and product to market, then fleets will be able to operate and OEMs can put that into their trucks and sell to their customers.

Technology Approach. As mentioned earlier, we think there are two key problems that everybody needs to solve in this space. First, you have to build a technology that is really robust and safe, and that can operate in the real world. Second, you need to be able to demonstrate that it actually can do that and is really safe. One of the things that distinguish us is our view that the best way to solve both problems is through extensive road testing and miles driven. And by extensive, we mean on the order of billions of miles.

On the technology side, we do a lot of offline simulation and testing and that’s a big part of what we spend time on. Nonetheless, there are some core components to these types of systems that are based on deep learning or AI type techniques, particularly in the perception space. What that means is that those things need a lot of data to be able to generalize, which is something that we as humans do really well. If someone learns to drive a truck, they can then be expected to be able to handle all those things happening out there on the road. But that’s not really true for computers and software. It wouldn’t know what to do or wouldn’t necessarily know what those things are if the system hasn’t seen it before. So our view is that getting broad exposure is crucial to building the capabilities needed for full Level 4.

Craig: When you think about autonomous, there’s the long haul interstate highways where you basically have a closed-loop, a controlled environment much more so than in a rural area. Are we going to see autonomous point-to-point highway miles before we see autonomous in these rural areas? Is that your expectation?

Shawn: I think so. We’ll see it first in more controlled environments, which are major divided highway segments. But it’s important to keep in mind that while they’re relatively controlled, a lot of things can still happen out there. That’s why it’s so critical to get broad exposure.

Through the approach we are taking, we can deliver real value to customers. With added efficiency, we’ll probably see a transition of freight from air and rail to trucking, thus it will grow the overall market even further.

Craig: So your expectation is that with autonomous that it makes alternative forms of transportation less attractive, simply because the trucks can go longer? Or what’s the view? How do you go about replacing different modes of traffic?

Shawn: Not necessarily replacing, but it will shift the balance of trade perhaps. Having autonomous trucks in long haul segments can reduce the cost and time to move freight, compared to air or rail.

Craig: You will have automated trucks on the road in China sometime next year. When will we start seeing trucks here in the domestic U.S. market? When can manufacturers potentially put this technology inside the vehicles that they’re producing here in the United States?

Shawn: We are excited about our initial launch in China next year, but we are taking a global view to this. We are working with our partners here in the U.S. and also taking a broader view of other places around the world. So this is something that we hope to bring to a number of different markets in the coming years.

Craig: When is your expectation that Level 5 not requiring a human driver to be in the cab will come? When is your expectation that we’ll start seeing successful implementation for point-to-point?

Shawn: Plus is focused on Level 4 which means no driver in the cab but for very specific operating domains and routes. The timeline to get to Level 4 is around 2024.

Level 5, which is defined as being able to operate anywhere, is a long way out and it’s hard to put a time estimate on that. Driving trucks in an urban environment is a very complex problem. The place where this technology brings the most value and where we will see the first commercial exposure is Level 4 highway segment.

Craig: What have you learned from the pilots that you’ve done in these environments that you roll out?

Shawn: We’ve learned a tremendous amount across all different areas of the stack. A couple of the most important learnings is that it’s really going to require extensive testing to be able to get it to the level where you can operate without a driver. The second thing we’ve learned from working with some big partners is what it takes to take the core technology from a demo and make it robust enough to be deployed in a full project. We spent a lot last year focusing on software optimization and robustness. As you go from initial set of pilots and demos to a real product, there’s a lot that needs to be done to make sure everything is really robust, reliable and secure.

Craig: You have raised a large round of capital to get it into production and got this agreement with FAW to put the trucks on the road. So what is next in terms of what Plus needs to do to execute your business plan? What does it take to get from here to next year for you?

Shawn: The next phase is really on execution and scaling up the deployment of our product to really prove out the safety and reliability of the technology. That comes with scaling up our infrastructure and different parts of our operations.

Craig: Regulators have to develop a structure that enables point-to-point autonomous technology to thrive. What are your thoughts on the regulatory elements? When you talk to investors or stakeholders, is that a topic of concern? Is there anything that our audience can think about or do to help promote these technologies, but do it in a way that certainly encourages responsible and sustainable outcomes?

Shawn: Regulatory is certainly a really important aspect here. There’re a lot of things that need to be worked out before you can have fully driverless trucks on the road. But we’ve seen from regulators a lot of support because of the safety aspects of this technology and the benefits that it can bring. We think that from the alignment of interest, everybody’s really eager to see the types of benefits this technology can bring.

Craig: So 2024 here in the United States, we’ll have Level 4 autonomous trucks. We’ll be able to do driverless pickup and delivery at least at some level. When are we going to start looking at a real ‘inflection curve’ where autonomous vehicles come to a point where it’s not unusual to see one on the road and where the vast majority of the installed fleet here in the U.S. is actually autonomous?

Shawn: I think that’s a while off. Trucking is such a massive market. The initial deployment of these technologies in full Level 4 mode will be in constrained Operational Design Domain (ODD). It will be a long-term process as these technologies really demonstrate their ability to operate safely within those limited domains, and then gradually grow those over time.