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.
like in the movie? (Score:5, Funny)
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WHERE ARE YOU, YOU SOMBITCH?
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And a trip from Texarkana to Atlanta.
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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"......
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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.
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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....
Re:like in the movie? (Score:4, Funny)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Yeah..I put one in my car a few years back..found out a few things h
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Time for smokey and the bandit 2020?
Re:like in the movie? (Score:5, Funny)
2,000 crates of Budweiser? They weren't risking much it it flipped over. Nobody's going to cry over that.
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Budweiser has a very large brewery in Fort Collins. Right off I25.
Re:like in the movie? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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! (Score:2)
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.
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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!).
means more if it's Coors (Score:2)
well, it IS an old movie...
To be fair, a pretty easy run (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:To be fair, a pretty easy run (Score:5, Funny)
He was clearly exaggerating. It's more like 7 mph.
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Key is "used to", anytime I've driven North or South of Denver in the past year anything south of Ft Collins or north of Colorado Springs is a crawl pretty much any time of day... stop and go on a freeway around highway 64 at 10am on a weekday. Ugh.
Obviously the post was a bit tongue in cheek, but not by much!
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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.
Re:To be fair, a pretty easy run (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
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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.
Re:To be fair, a pretty easy run (Score:5, Insightful)
Beer? (Score:2)
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From TFA: "Eventually, Otto started adding dummy trailers, eventually filling them with dummy beer"
So you're not wrong...
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Agreed. When they're driving 2000 cases of Fat Tire down from Fort Collins, you'll know they have more confidence in the system.
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I wouldn't call Fat Tire beer either.
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It's all just yeast shit anyway.
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It's all just yeast shit anyway.
In that case, wine is also yeast shit, and spirits are distilled/concentrated yeast shit.
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Exactly. Thank you for playing.
Mt Dew for the win.
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Sugar shit?
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Is one of those words "Foster"?
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They considered better quality beer to big a risk to transport with the unproven technology. Crashing and spilling Budweiser wasn't considered much of a risk.
Legality (Score:4, Interesting)
Slashdot: Is that... Leeegal?
Emperor Uber: I'll make it legal!
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"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?
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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.
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Stuff a postal worker in there and I believe they can ram a firetruck and still have right-of-way.
The future of transportation is no employees? (Score:2)
What a future!
did it drive like most truckers? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
We're just thrilled! (Score:5, Funny)
"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."
That's exactly how it SHOULD work! (Score:2)
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?
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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.
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Teamsters aren't above using, ahem, "persuasive" techniques on human drivers who don't toe the line. Don't be surprised to see a lot of slashed tires, cut brake lines, etc. on these new robotic rigs.
We saw how well that worked for the Luddites.
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I think that there is a Walmart greeter position with your name on it.
Welcome to Walmart, I love you...
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It is not exactly the cheapest beer on the shelf as it is.
Personally, I'm a Hamms man myself. Or Old Style if I want to change things up. Both are cheaper than Bud.
I drink Bud when I want to feel classy.
Machine learning's got a lot to figure out. (Score:2)
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Maximun Overdrive.... (Score:3)
When these self driving trucks need fuel, will they take a truck stop hostage???
Should never have been allowed (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Should never have been allowed (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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.
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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.
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I agree. It should never be allowed because of [insert guesses about a system I know nothing about]
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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.
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Right, because you have lots of evidence showing human drivers are safer?
The onus is on the company 'changing things' to prove that their change will not cause issues, not the other way around. Very few 'Jane Q. Drivers' would ever be able to pass a long haul truck license test. Having quick reflexes is a very small part of driving, in fact the whole point of driving is to anticipate what will happen. Unless in exceptional circumstances, if you need reflexes then you are doing something very wrong.
Dummy Beer (Score:3, Funny)
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?
You should be less impressed... (Score:2)
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. ;)
Wrong Answer for Long Distance Shipping (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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.
Thank you Slashdot (Score:2)
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 wasn't even beer! (Score:2)
Damnit. Now I want a Newcastle.
At any rate.. this
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The closest description I'll accept for that swill is 'beer-like beverage',
Something almost, but not completely, unlike beer?
Why does the driver move? (Score:2)
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 uber e-beer delivery app to age checks? boot (Score:2)
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.
In the near future.... (Score:2)
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. ... nothing here from you since yesterday!
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
Murph: !.....
meanwhile at UC Colorado Springs
pan back from automated budwiser truck
Skolnick: Wormser, Poi
Not the First (Score:5, Informative)
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.
How does it handle weather? (Score:2)
Lake effect storms? Snow Chi Mihn (google it)? hail storms? Etc.
Other than that I was deeply disappointed about the lack of pizza.
Almost squared (Score:2)
So it's almost self-driving.
Then again, its cargo is almost beer.
Correction (Score:2)
Uber's Self-Driving Truck Went on a 120-Mile Beer Run To Make History^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Publicity
Re:Self driving cars don't have to be perfect... (Score:4, Insightful)
... they just have to be better than humans. And sadly, in many areas they already are - give it a few more years for the remaining rough spots.
One important difference:
When humans screw up they're usually not worth suing.
When self-driving cars screw up there's a large, wealthy company to try to sue.
One of the best quote from Humans Need Not Apply (Score:3)
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The young ones will find something else to do.
Like cook meth.
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What they're claiming as self-driving is lane keeping with self-adjusting speed.
When the thing manages to overtake / rejoin a lane in a safe manner, that will be news.
When it'll be able to turn around at an (unplanned) stop and take an alternative road by itself, that will be news.
Going in a (semi-)straight line with constant speed is just the very first step of a very complex problem.
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Exactly what I was thinking. How long do these humans have to train their replacements before they're jobless?
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Why not? That's what human drivers do.
Touché!
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Unfortunately, the functionality that's missing is what's missing from the human drivers.
Merging can be a smooth operation, just like operating a zipper. But too often a dick jams it up.
Take, for example, some clueless person coming on the highway who cannot make up their mind to speed up and go ahead of you or slow down and drop in behind you. Then there's the idiots who take it as a personal insult if anyone should be ahead of their supreme greatness and drop in from the fast line right ahead of you just
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Not sure what you mean by "end points", but couldn't the trucks stop at something like a rest area on the edge of town and the human gets on there and take it the last few miles - sort of like how it works with ships & pilots?
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Actually, that's not a bad idea. Although in Florida, they've been closing rest stops down over the years.
A variation of that might be the truck weighing stations. Because they're not handling automotive traffic, there would be less of an issue with other vehicles.
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Not sure what you mean by "end points", but couldn't the trucks stop at something like a rest area on the edge of town and the human gets on there and take it the last few miles - sort of like how it works with ships & pilots?
Exactly. Someday a driver wouldn't have to stay on board the entire time. The relatively easy and predictable interstate driving could be delegated to the computer (which can drive continuously without ever getting drowsy or distracted). A driver familiar with local roads would hop on to handle the more complicated driving between the pick-up/delivery end points and nearest interstate entrance/exit ramp.
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I have no idea how you think a truck can go across the country in 1 day. Sure, some guys recently did the Cannonball Run in just over a day [thetruthaboutcars.com], but that was at high speed and with plenty of tricks to not be stopped by police.
Google maps shows the time as 41 hours, and that assumes no traffic and traveling the posted speed limit. From my recent perspective of having driven large amounts of miles while on vacation
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Let's do something nice on Slashdot for a change: a Colorado breweries love-in!
I'll start: GREAT DIVIDE. Probably my favorite from that state, right now. (Maybe because it's not distributed in my state, so I treasure it like I treasure other hard-to-gets.)
Avery and Oskar Blues are other near-favorites. Steamwork (though I'm not sure they package). Ska can be good.
What's yours? I wanna go on another CO shopping trip in a few weeks. Help me out.
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Let's do something nice on Slashdot for a change.
This goes against everything Slashdot stands for.
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Let's do something nice on Slashdot for a change.
This goes against everything Slashdot stands for.
This goes against everything the Internet stands for.
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So you managed to haul a few canned cases of water down a hill.
More like a steady uphill from start to finish...
Fort Collins - 5,003 ft (1,525 m)
Colorado Springs - 6,035 ft (1,839 m)
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Clearly, you have a lot going on inside...
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Budweiser.
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wtf is "dummy beer"?
That is a generic name for many types, such as Budweiser, Coors, Keystone, Miller, etc.
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http://www.npr.org/sections/mo... [npr.org]
Flip the chart to 2014.
There's going to be a lot of disaffected out-of-work folks in the future.
Precisely..
To add to the quote from the headline... "We're just thrilled. We do think this is the future of transportation where we can save a shit ton of money by firing all the truck drivers that are working for us now".
Just need a minimum wage scrub riding along to load and unload the truck.