Startup Firm Unveils Prototype Autonomous Truck

Prototype autonomous truck in Nevada desert. Photo: Embark

Yet another startup tech firm has rolled into the autonomous truck arena. San Mateo, Calif.-based Embark publicly revealed its prototype self-driving truck on Feb. 24.

The company, which gained approval from the State of Nevada earlier this year to begin testing its truck on public roads, said its self-driving technology enables a truck “to drive from exit to exit on the freeway without any human input.”

Embark said its tractor-trailer setup uses a combination of radars, cameras and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) depth sensors “to perceive the world around it.” The data points captured are processed via a form of Artificial Intelligence known as Deep Neural Nets (DNNs) that “allow the truck to learn from its own experience— much like humans learn from practice.”

“Analyzing terabyte upon terabyte of real-world data, Embark's DNNs have learned how to see through glare, fog and darkness on their own,” said Alex Rodrigues, CEO and co-founder of Embark. “We've programmed them with a set of rules to help safely navigate most situations, how to safely learn from the unexpected, and how to apply that experience to new situations going forward.”

Embark's truck is built specifically for “long, simple stretches of freeway driving between cities, rather than all aspects of driving.”

Like other autonomous truck designs, including the Freightliner Inspiration truck and the Otto (owned by Uber) truck, Embark's computerized truck is meant to be handed off to a human driver once it heads off the highway, who will then navigate local streets to the destination. “A human driver will still touch every load, but with Embark they're able to move more loads per day, handing off hundreds of miles of freeway driving to their robot partners,” is how the company put it.

Rodrigues said he was inspired to launch Embark after ...Read the rest of this story

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HDT Announces 2017 Top 20 Products

Heavy Duty Trucking magazine announced its 2017 Top 20 Products, highlighting the most innovative, significant and useful new product announcements from the previous year.

The winners are published in the February issue. Awards will be presented during individual ceremonies at the ATA's Technology & Maintenance Council annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, Feb. 27-March 2.

Each year, HDT's editors spend a lot of time going to press conferences and combing through news releases on the latest new products for trucking. At the end of the year, they embark on a process to identify the very best of the past year's introductions for the Top 20 Products.

Editors sift through all of the new product announcements that appeared in the magazine or on the Truckinginfo.com website over the course of 2016 to winnow down the list. Products are chosen based on the level of innovation, ability to address significant industry issues, and potential benefit to the bottom line.

A panel of HDT current and former Truck Fleet Innovators and maintenance executives active in the Technology & Maintenance Council are then consulted to arrive at the final 20.

Entire vehicles are not included, and products must be commercially available or scheduled to become commercially available this year.

The resulting Top 20 products are listed in alphabetical order by company name:

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TP-8656 Kit Looks for Leaks

Tracerline's TP-8656 Opti-Pro Plus/EZ-Shot is an A/C leak detection kit that comes with all the pieces necessary to pinpoint a fluid leak.

The kit makes it easier to find the exact source of a leak, including very small, multiple and intermittent leaks. Technicians can use it to safely search near moving parts and it is ideal for preventative maintenance and diagnostics.

By finding and fixing leaks, fleets can conserve refrigerant and other fluids, reducing costs.

The kit features the Opti-Pro Plus cordless, rechargeable, violet light LED detection flashlight and original equipment manufacturer-approved fluorescent dye. Also included in the kit is an EZ-Shot A/C dye injection gun, R134a hose/coupler with R-12 adapter and purge fitting, an 8-ounce, TP-9940 fluorescence-enhancing glasses, and other needed pieces.

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The Electrics Are Coming

Mercedes-Benz is 20 select European customers pre-production electric e-Trucks to run in real-world fleet conditions.

Photo credit: Mercedes-Benz 

It's called the eTruck. Built by Daimler's Mercedes-Benz division, and it was wheeled out at the IAA Commercial Vehicle Show in Hannover, Germany, last year. And this week, the automaker announced it is supplying an extremely exclusive group of customers with the first 20 pre-production models to run them for a year as a sort of real world Beta test in German cities.

At first glance, the eTruck looks like a fairly conventional European truck design, but underneath there's some pretty interesting advanced engineering. The truck is fitted with 212 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery packs, allowing for a range of around 124 miles per charge, according to Mercedes-Benz. The powertrain is centered around front- and rear-mounted electric motors, providing a combined 335 hp and 737 lb-ft of torque. Payload capacity is rated up to 12.8 tons, with a permitted gross vehicle weight of around 25,000 lbs. and a GVWR of up to 50,000 pounds – not bad for urban delivery applications.

And that's not Daimler's only electric vehicle effort: The company also owns a significant share of Mitsubishi-Fuso. And reports indicate that an all-electric version of the company's medium-duty Canter cabover trucks — fittingly called the eCanter – is set to get a similar real-world test run in Japan and North America soon.

Of course all of this comes on the heels of the introduction of the Nikola One Class 8 electric tractor a few months ago.

All this begs the question: Are electric trucks about to become a “thing?”

The short answer is yes. In some ways, EV technology seems to be mirroring autonomous technology – most strikingly in that the timeline for production and adoption is accelerating at a pace far faster than ...Read the rest of this story