Last week, Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA announced “a long-term strategic partnership to deploy driverless trucks at scale, powered by the next-generation NVIDIA DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chip (SoC). NVIDIA’s DRIVE Thor and DriveOS will be integrated into the Aurora Driver, an SAE L4 autonomous driving system that Continental plans to mass-manufacture in 2027.”
Here are some more details from the press release:
Aurora – a leader in autonomous trucks – is in the final stages of validating the Aurora Driver for driverless operations on public roads. The Aurora Driver is equipped with a powerful computer and sensors, including lidar, radar, and cameras, enabling it to safely operate at highway speeds. Verifiable AI enables the Aurora Driver to quickly adapt to new operating domains while being validated through Aurora’s Safety Case, an essential tool for regulatory trust and public acceptance. Aurora plans to launch its driverless trucking service in Texas in April 2025.
NVIDIA will power the primary computer of the Aurora Driver with a dual NVIDIA DRIVE Thor SoC configuration that runs DriveOS. DRIVE Thor, built on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, is designed to accelerate inference tasks critical for autonomous vehicles to understand and navigate the world around them.
Continental – one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers – is developing a reliable, serviceable, cost-efficient generation of the Aurora Driver hardware, specifically for high-volume manufacturing. The company is also developing a specialized independent secondary system that can take over operation if a failure occurs in the primary Aurora Driver computer.
Based on surveys we’ve done with members of our Indago supply chain research community — who are all supply chain and logistics executives from manufacturing, retail, and distribution companies — very few companies are currently testing driverless trucks to ship or receive goods. “I believe we are still 10 years out before this technology is adopted and safe for all involved,” said one executive member in an August 2022 survey. “Our company would get involved once our carrier base has thoroughly tested the driverless capabilities and proven their risk to be zero.”
Here are some other comments submitted at the time:
“We are participating in C.H. Robinson’s driverless truck study. We have been impressed up to this point and are considering use of the trucks for some of our western U.S. lanes.”
“I believe the tipping point will come when the available driver pool is so shallow that driverless is the only viable solution.”
“[We’ve been testing driverless trucks and] so far, we haven’t seen any immediate benefits. Our interest in participation is for the benefits that we expect to come in the future.”
“I think the technology has the capacity to become useful, but there would need to be a change in how roads are built before I’d feel comfortable with driverless big rigs driving down the road.”
“Once there is enough proof that convinces the public that driverless trucks are safer than conventional methods, I’d expect to see adoption increase.”
We also asked our Indago members, “What are the biggest reasons why your company is not testing driverless trucks at this time?” Topping the list at the time was “Our carriers/brokers are not offering driverless trucks at time,” with 75% of the respondents selecting it. “Technology is not mature enough yet to test” (38%) and “Cost or service benefits not evident at this time” (29%) rounded out the top three.
Being able to manufacture driverless trucks at scale will be important someday, but it seems to me that we’re still some years away before we reach that point. The demand for driverless trucks has cooled down a bit the past couple of years due to the excess of trucking capacity (and drivers) in the market. But capacity will eventually tighten again, and when it happens, driverless trucks will once again be positioned as a long-term solution.
The fact remains, however, that technology has always been, and will always be, far ahead of what most companies are willing or are ready to use — whether it’s driverless trucks, robots in the warehouse, AI in enterprise systems, or any other technology. It’s the classic “change management” problem. Driverless trucks have the added challenge of having to overcome regulatory, legal, and societal hurdles too.
In short, I believe driverless trucks will play a role in transportation networks in the future, and partnerships like the one announced by Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA are important steps in getting there. But the road to widespread adoption of driverless trucks remains long and bumpy.
What do you think? Post a comment and share your perspective.
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