Saturday, April 15, 2017

Xinhua — China's self-driving truck passes test

A Chinese-made self-driving truck has passed a navigation test, heralding the era of intelligent, automated heavy vehicles.
FAW Jiefang, the leading truck manufacturer, debuted the self-driving truck at FAW Tech Center in Changchun City, Jilin Province. The truck was able to recognize obstacles, slow down, make a detour, and speed up.
The truck reacted correctly to traffic lights, adaptive cruise control, remote commands and successfully overtook, company sources said.
FAW Jiefang now plans to commercialize the intelligent driving vehicle as early as 2018.
Hu Hanjie, FAW Jiefang general manager, said the company has built a whole industry chain partnership to develop, manufacture, sell, and service self-driving trucks. The participation of more firms across the sector will accelerate the technology's use on heavy-duty vehicles, Hu said.
Industry insiders, however, said the technology may prove more practical when it is used on trucks than private cars as truck drivers are more likely to drive tired. The new systems could cut operational costs by replacing drivers.
Xinhua | Editor: Yao Lan


Ryan Harris said...

Getting all the US states on-board and licensed, regulated, I'm betting 2020ish before we see widespread adoption here. Trucking is tightly regulated and heavily taxed. Fuel taxes, road taxes, excise taxes. Local police officers get a couple hundred dollars for each truck that they stop and inspect for the US DOT compliance. Weigh stations sell licenses and issue tickets that generate ooodles of money. States will want all those issues resolved before allowing electric or diesel trucks to roll automated. Currently, all those system revolve around drivers and reporting. Laws have to be changed, people trained, systems modified. Tech is roaring ahead of bureaucracy.

Noah Way said...

Sheer idiocy. Tech over humanity (no labor costs!).

Not that long ago a machinist figured out how to make something and then produced it accurately and efficiently. Now a "machinist" loads a blank into a machine, closes the door and presses the 'start' button. And probably can't read a non-digital clock.

Ryan Harris said...

If not driving trucks, people can be free to facebook and play sports and have children & other more important higher value activities. We can give people a dollar for friending someone or running a mile and a dime for liking or cheering their team.

But then some wise guy will automate playing sports or facebooking and think their innovation leads to billions in wealth by saving people the bother.

Peter Pan said...

Trucks loaded with thousands of dollars of goods are stolen everyday. Maybe there's hope for all those unemployed security guards.

Joe said...

I'm very impressed at the progressed they've made with sell driving cars. And I have no doubt self driving delivery vehicle and in other situations will become common. But after this winter we just had here, I'm incredibly skeptical that a self driving car would have been able to navigate the roads. I'm ready to be surprised though, I hate driving.

Peter Pan said...

Delivery drivers are able to do things that self-delivery vehicles cannot. Like retrieving the 'delivery' and carrying it to your door.

Penguin pop said...

We'd need robots to do that part then if this is where this is all heading. We already have a couch potato culture now in America, let's accelerate it even more. In fact, we don't even need activism in the future. Let the machines do that too. Pretty soon even checking Facebook would be like hard labor for the next generation.

Noah Way said...

I'm tired of reading. Isn't there a machine that will read everything out loud for me?

Peter Pan said...

There is, but it's annoying.