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Transportation

Uber's Self-Driving Truck Went on a 120-Mile Beer Run To Make History (businessinsider.com) 246

An anonymous reader writes: In the arms race to build self-driving vehicles, Uber-owned Otto just reached a landmark milestone by completing the first-ever commercial cargo run for a self-driving truck. On October 20, the self-driving truck left Fort Collins, Colorado at 1 a.m. and drove itself 120 miles on I-25 to Colorado Springs. The driver, who has to be there to help the truck get on and off the interstate exit ramps, moved to the backseat alongside a crowd of transportation officials to watch the historic ride. 2,000 cases of Budweiser beer filled the trailer. "We're just thrilled. We do think this is the future of transportation," James Sembrot, senior director of logistics strategy at Anheuser-Busch, told Business Insider.
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Uber's Self-Driving Truck Went on a 120-Mile Beer Run To Make History

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  • by k6mfw ( 1182893 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @11:43AM (#53147187)
    I didn't RTFA, I guess this turn was able to outsmart Buford T. Justice.
    • But, it should have been Coors beer....and a black Trans Am running blocker!!!
      • WHERE ARE YOU, YOU SOMBITCH?

      • And a trip from Texarkana to Atlanta.

        • You know...having the TA be self driving would take 99% of the full out of it....

          But there's ONE plus I can think of....

          If it were self driving, you'd not have to pull off to the side of the road to "jump Frog"......

          ;)

          • You know...having the TA be self driving would take 99% of the full out of it....

            I'm not sure if you meant fun, fuel, or fdlsadjfaldskfj. Since none of them make sense, I guess it doesn't really matter.

            • You know...having the TA be self driving would take 99% of the full out of it....

              I'm not sure if you meant fun, fuel, or fdlsadjfaldskfj. Since none of them make sense, I guess it doesn't really matter.

              Yep..I mean FUN....damned fumble-fingers....

              Yes, fast cars are FUN to drive. Self driving ones will take a lot of the pleasure out the lives of us that buy cars that are meant to be enjoyed any time you take them on the open road....

      • by Fire_Wraith ( 1460385 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @12:31PM (#53147719)
        Well, it wouldn't be the first time someone made a Black Self-Driving Trans-Am...

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      • by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
        I also refer this movie as a tutorial for proper use of CB radio. I'm old enough to remember when a license was required to use CB but with the craze during 1970s, the FCC threw in the towel and declared it license free. In fact those that have the FCC paper copy of their CB license is quite exclusive, like being a member of a club no longer able to join. Some predict GMRS may go either license free or the freq allocated to some other use.
        • I also refer this movie as a tutorial for proper use of CB radio. I'm old enough to remember when a license was required to use CB but with the craze during 1970s, the FCC threw in the towel and declared it license free. In fact those that have the FCC paper copy of their CB license is quite exclusive, like being a member of a club no longer able to join. Some predict GMRS may go either license free or the freq allocated to some other use.

          Yeah..I put one in my car a few years back..found out a few things h

      • Time for smokey and the bandit 2020?

    • by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @12:13PM (#53147545) Homepage

      2,000 crates of Budweiser? They weren't risking much it it flipped over. Nobody's going to cry over that.

      • I know what you mean. But why wasn't it Coors? Isn't that brewed in Colorado?
        • Budweiser has a very large brewery in Fort Collins. Right off I25.

          • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @01:15PM (#53148141)

            Budweiser has a very large brewery in Fort Collins. Right off I25.

            And there is a large feedlot right next to it, where they collect the piss.

            • by Kjella ( 173770 )

              And there is a large feedlot right next to it, where they collect the piss.

              The GTA V beer [wikia.com] is spoofing Budweiser's anthem, I wonder why... of course they also say it's German but I think they got it confused with Bismarck, North Dakota or something. They might be responsible for World War I, World War II, blood, sweat, tears and gas chambers but bad beer is simply inhumane.

      • 2,000 crates of Budweiser? They weren't risking much it it flipped over. Nobody's going to cry over that.

        HA! Exactly what I was thinking. Of all the beer they could ship, that was the worst beer made in Colorado –good reasoning if there was an accident.

        • Oh whatever you snobs.

          Budweiser is a good beer.

          Every microbrewery seems to think that massive amounts of hops is the only way to make a beer. I am sick of it.

          Give me a good old American pale ale any day.

          • Same here a lot of what people call 'good beer' feels like it is burning a hole through my stomach and the carbs make me nauseous. Nice draft pilsner is just fine.
          • Except that Budweiser is not a pale ale, it's a pilsener. Pale Ales have flavor, pilseners are just bitter, and thin and taste the same going in as they do coming out.
            • Darn. In that case, give me a good old America pilsner then :)

              And as far as the tastes the same coming out as going in thing. I'll take your word for it.

    • the driver is an 1099 and uber will not pay bail or court costs! also under the NDA the driver will be sued big time if he talks to the cops or the courts about any think that does done in the truck.

    • Buford doesn't get out of bed for Budweiser, I'm guessing. He's definitely the sort to chase after Coors to great comedic effect [wikipedia.org], however, for anyone out there who doesn't get the reference (shame on you!).

    • well, it IS an old movie...

  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @11:43AM (#53147199)

    As anyone who has driven I-25 from Ft. Collins to Colorado Springs, it's all wide highway, and the average speed is around 4 MPH.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Uhm I have never experienced 4 mph except in metro Denver, and the slower speeds in traffic are where more accidents happen anyway and there are more problems. And yes I used to make the drive fairly often.
    • by taustin ( 171655 )

      From my experience, that's because Colorado keeps all highways torn up all the time, and Colorado drivers are required to come to a complete stop to examine each and every orange cone, individually.

      However, I did notice that nobody stopped to observe the pickup truck that was dripping fire and smelled like fireworks. That, apparently, is not noteworthy is Colorado.

    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @12:44PM (#53147835) Journal
      Not to mention there was no traffic on the road that late at night, and more importantly, you don't learn anything scientific from doing this (and afaict, they don't even claim to have learned anything), it's just a publicity stunt.

      And Uber has been doing a lot of these kinds of publicity stunts lately. My theory is that they are trying to pump up their valuation for an IPO (or another round of funding or whatever).
    • by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

      As anyone who has driven I-25 from Ft. Collins to Colorado Springs, it's all wide highway, and the average speed is around 4 MPH.

      That average hides a deeper truth, that I-25 driving consists of two states: going 80 MPH, and being at a dead stop.

  • It was Budweiser. I wouldn't call that beer.
  • Legality (Score:4, Interesting)

    by captaindomon ( 870655 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @11:49AM (#53147275)
    "The driver, who has to be there to help the truck get on and off the interstate exit ramps, moved to the backseat alongside a crowd of transportation officials to watch the historic ride."
    Slashdot: Is that... Leeegal?
    Emperor Uber: I'll make it legal!
    • "The driver, who has to be there to help the truck get on and off the interstate exit ramps, moved to the backseat alongside a crowd of transportation officials to watch the historic ride."

      What struck me most about this is not that there was a driver in this autonomous vehicle. That's normal. It's that he got in back with a CROWD of officials. In a truck like that, a "crowd" is what, ONE or TWO?

      • I got the impression that hey went into the back with the officials to then watch the historic ride on a monitor. If that isn't a commentary on society today, I don't know what is.

  • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @11:54AM (#53147335) Homepage

    and decide to pass another truck at 0.001mph in order to block all traffic for 10 miles?
    Honestly if you are not passing by at least 4mph dont pass. they should let cops ticket truckers for passing without using their gas pedal.

  • by swb ( 14022 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @11:54AM (#53147341)

    "We're just thrilled. We do think this is the future of transportation," James Sembrot, senior director of logistics strategy at Anheuser-Busch, told Business Insider.

    "I have a bonus target that kicks in when I cut our labor tab by $2 million, this will easily help me get there by eliminating a bunch of Teamster hacks and their pension contributions," Sembrot added.

    "Wait, is your recorder still running? Can we cut that last part out, I want to keep the focus on how AB-InBev is embracing new technologies, that last part is kind of off the record."

    • And that's exactly how it should work! Should we also get rid of our computers and go back to armies of accounting and payroll clerks? Armies of shipping and receiving clerks?

      • You are correct, however the concern is what happens when large parts of the workforce become essentially unemployable. Increased productivity and free trade are good things, but they do create winners and losers. We need to be more mindful of the losers and help them adjust to the changes.

  • Normally I just go to the liquor store a few blocks away.
  • by tekrat ( 242117 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @12:10PM (#53147521) Homepage Journal

    When these self driving trucks need fuel, will they take a truck stop hostage???

  • by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @12:16PM (#53147565)

    Self-driving tech is still at a point where cars are having accidents (some even fatal) , and requires car drivers to be in the driving seat and have their hands on the wheel.
    For them to have a fully loaded semi on the freeway and the driver to get in the back seat was blatantly irresponsible. This experiment should never even have been legal.

    • by chrysrobyn ( 106763 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @12:36PM (#53147771)

      For them to have a fully loaded semi on the freeway and the driver to get in the back seat was blatantly irresponsible. This experiment should never even have been legal.

      According to TFA, they've been preparing for this one run for 6 months. Mapping it out, training the AI on the dynamics of loaded trailers, sending humans down the road to see when the safest time is, etc. You can bet more than a few lawyers were consulted during the course of this work between two companies.

      AI cars have such a low safety requirement, they're going to have to swerve around them to avoid tripping over it. In cars, they have soccer moms with screaming kids and middle managers gabbing on cell phones, distracted driving accounts for half of the traffic out there. In the case of a commercial trucker, we're talking overtired and bored. An AI with an adequate vision system can easily out perform the most distracted drivers on controlled roads in perfect weather. We talk about self driving cars as though they only win the safety game with 0% accidents, but if safety concerned moms and wealthy business people buy them, I think tail end of the safety curve is going to get chopped off, bringing the averages up. Hell, I'd chip in for a retrofit on a BMW I keep seeing on my commute.

      • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

        Urgh. IMHO BMWs are SO overpriced and overrated. The ride is usually stupidly hard. The assumption is that this is done to increase handling, but it is really not necessary to do that. Look at Jags or Ferraris, they don;t ride as hard as BMWs but handle just as well if not better.
        And like nearly all German cars, BMWs are about as soulless and interesting to look at as a doctors waiting room.

        • by j-beda ( 85386 )

          Urgh. IMHO BMWs are SO overpriced and overrated.....

          I think you missunderstood the parent. chrysrobyn was saying that there was a BMW often seen on their commute that is very poorly driven and that chrysrobyn would contribute money to get it retrofitted as an AI driven vehicle since even with the current flawed AIs, the AI would be a better driver than the current human driver.

    • I agree. It should never be allowed because of [insert guesses about a system I know nothing about]

      • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

        Because some mystery company has secretly come up with a fully safe autonomous system that is better than everything else out there including Tersla, but no-one has heard about, and decided to only put it on a semi? Yeah right whatever dude.

  • Dummy Beer (Score:3, Funny)

    by niaxilin ( 1773080 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @12:37PM (#53147779)

    Eventually, Otto started adding dummy trailers, eventually filling them with dummy beer to understand how the truck would react when it was fully loaded.

    So they filled the dummy trailers with Budweiser?

  • because they actually just sent the truck on a local beer run down the street. This is what happens when you hire the lead engineer behind Apple Maps to design the navigation system. ;)

  • by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @12:54PM (#53147939)

    Self driving trucks aren't the right answer for long distance shipping. Sure, it becomes cheaper and safer in the longer term to have trucks drive themselves. But it won't reduce the overall traffic levels, lower the pollution from so many trucks, or reduce the damage to the roads by the vehicles. More trucks will still be needed in the future as more and more goods are transported. It will be lowered because each truck will be on the road more.

    We need to go back to railroads for deliveries between large cities. From there then trucks, either with a driver or self driving, can take the goods from the rail yards throughout the city and to the smaller cities nearby. It would mean further reliance on shipping containers but they are a proven technology. Drivers would become local from long haul. This plan would get many large trucks off of the highways which would make them safer, reduce maintenance costs, and drop the need to expand them.

    For larger companies such as Walmart instead of loading a truck at their warehouse to go to a specific store or two they would load a container. The container would be taken to the closest rail yard. The rail company would have trains going to nearby cities leaving at regular times instead of waiting for the train to reach a certain size. The container would reach the destination city at a certain time and the company would have a local driver there pick it up and drive it to the proper store(s). This would be instead of having one driver go directly from the warehouse to the store.

    I thought about this one night when I was going from Toronto to Ottawa on the train and most of the traffic on the highway was large trucks. They were all going to the same places (Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal, etc). If most of that cargo could be shipped by train it would be better for the environment, the highways would be safer, taxpayers would save money on the highways, and companies could save even more on delivery costs.

    • But it won't reduce the overall traffic levels, lower the pollution from so many trucks

      Actually that's precisely what they're ultimately going for. Scania's first test of a semi-autonomous platooning system where the front truck is driven and the rest follow by computer showed a 12% reduction in fuel and emissions. The Volvo team measured a 10% reduction in the trailing truck and a 4% reduction in the leading.

  • I came into this thread expecting to see an Imperial buttload of Smokey and the Bandit related comments. The denizens of Slashdot did not disappoint. :D

    That said, can it really be considered a beer run, when all the truck did was deliver beer flavored water?

  • It was Budweiser, so it's grossly inaccurate to call it 'beer'. The closest description I'll accept for that swill is 'beer-like beverage', and then only if I'm in a really good mood. Really, there ought to be a law about what you can and can't call 'beer' in this country. The only thing worse than Budweiser, is PBR. Even Coors is better than either one of those. Hell, I'd rather get roaring drunk off oilcans of Fosters Lager than drink even one Budweiser.

    Damnit. Now I want a Newcastle.

    At any rate.. this
    • The closest description I'll accept for that swill is 'beer-like beverage',

      Something almost, but not completely, unlike beer?

  • The driver, who has to be there to help the truck get on and off the interstate exit ramps, moved to the backseat

    How is the demonstration any more compelling with the driver in the back seat? It's more daring, but assuming the driver sits front left and doesn't touch anything, it's no less compelling.

  • Will the uber e-beer delivery app to age checks? boot leg? pay taxes? comply with states beer laws?

    If they try there we are not a taxi line with Liquor they may be looking some hard time and or big fines in a criminal court of law and not a forced arbitration one.

  • phone rings

    Colorado Springs: Hi, this is Bob a Colorado Springs distribution center
    ABI dispatch: Hi, Bob this is Murphy at dispatch

    Bob: Hey Murph, how's the wife.
    Murph: doing well Bob thanks for asking
    Murph: say Bob, that last truck we sent hasn't come back yet, you guys still unloading?
    Bob: well that is odd Murph, haven't seen a truck today let me check the lot ... nothing here from you since yesterday!
    Murph: !.....

    meanwhile at UC Colorado Springs
    pan back from automated budwiser truck
    Skolnick: Wormser, Poi

  • Not the First (Score:5, Informative)

    by CaptainOfSpray ( 1229754 ) on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @01:37PM (#53148339)
    TFA is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Not the first, not the biggest, not the most difficult.

    Read this instead http://qz.com/656104/a-fleet-o... [qz.com]

    A week of driving, trucks from several manufacturers, 2000 km Stockholm to Rotterdam across 4 borders.

    Uber don't have a clue what they are up against. 120 miles? F**king amateurs.
  • Lake effect storms? Snow Chi Mihn (google it)? hail storms? Etc.

    Other than that I was deeply disappointed about the lack of pizza.

  • The driver, who has to be there to help the truck get on and off the interstate exit ramps

    So it's almost self-driving.

    Then again, its cargo is almost beer.

  • Uber's Self-Driving Truck Went on a 120-Mile Beer Run To Make History^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Publicity

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