
Has Uber killed off its self-driving trucks? - steven
https://backchannel.com/has-uber-killed-off-its-self-driving-trucks-3ebd2eb0e51
======
Animats
"Uber Freight" was supposed to be a freight forwarder, a booking service for
cargo. "Uber for semitrailers", if you will. Call for a truck and driver, and
someone comes, connects to your trailer, and takes it somewhere. There are
already other companies offering that service. There's no one dominant player,
so Uber might be able to muscle in.

Uber registered with the US DOT as a freight forwarder, not as a trucking
company. Freight forwarders are carriers, even if they don't own any trucks.
They have financial responsibility for the load getting to the destination in
good condition. Uber doesn't get to claim they're just a booking agent.

This service doesn't seem to have launched. But that's what previous reports
said Uber Freight was.

~~~
ithinkinstereo
Another startup called Cargomatic tried to do this a few years ago. They
raised $15MM but ended up shutting down last year due to logistical issues and
not being able to meaningful generate revenue. One of the founders even came
from a family who were in the trucking business. I think it's a good case
study for the various challenges any entrant in this sector will need to solve
in order to "disrupt" the old way of doing business.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/cargomatic-uber-for-
truckers-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/cargomatic-uber-for-truckers-
history-founders-investors-2016-8)

~~~
derefr
> logistical issues

This is a funny excuse for a company in the _logistics business_. You'd think
they'd be good at at least that one thing.

~~~
ithinkinstereo
Funny, indeed!

They supposedly had employees entering stuff into spreadsheets by hand. I
recall that this was due to there being so many edge-cases, which made it
difficult to automate processes.

The bigger problem I think with freight ever moving to self-driving is the
legal liabilities involved. Consequences of even minor accidents are amplified
with the size+mass involved.

We might see a hybrid system with auto-pilot doing the majority of the driving
similar to how we currently fly planes, but I can't imagine how that would
markedly improve the economic margins.

~~~
ghaff
>We might see a hybrid system with auto-pilot doing the majority of the
driving similar to how we currently fly planes,

That seems a very plausible scenario. Improves safety (which is a big plus!)
but doesn't really do much for the financials overall.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
One manned cab in a convoy with one or more self-drivers following does make
for more enticing financials. You still have someone on hand to deal with
paperwork, tire inspections, breakdowns, etc. with lower labor costs overall.

~~~
ghaff
Potentially. But then you have to transfer drivers to the depots where they
will pick up the other cabs in the convoy. The financials _may_ work. We'll
see. FWIW, driver cost seems to be about 1/3 the operational cost of trucking
today. And about 21% of trucking is over 1,000 miles. [1] So that 21% is
probably your target.

[1] [http://www.atri-online.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/ATRI-O...](http://www.atri-online.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/ATRI-Operational-Costs-of-Trucking-2014-FINAL.pdf)

------
skrause
As a German the self driving company Otto is really confusing. It doesn't only
have the same name but also almost exactly the same logo as Otto, the decades
old and second largest online retailer in Germany:

[https://www.otto.de/](https://www.otto.de/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_\(company\))

~~~
QML
I feel like the founders were just making a phonic play on the word 'auto'.

~~~
Torwald
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_engine)

------
wmil
I hope not. After the Budweiser / Uber test I had an idea for a film script.

Red necks with pre-electronic cars and an improvised EMP device are running
around hijacking self driving beer trucks.

I was thinking it would be kind of Fast & Furious style.

~~~
stale2002
This fear is overblown.

You can do everything you mentioned already.

Just put up a barrier on a road to stop the truck, and then shoot the driver.

Police aren't going to be able to protect drivers in the middle of nowhere.

Now ask yourself, why does this not happen right now?

~~~
dismantlethesun
Because police are more inclined to pursue crimes with a human victim. It's
like the difference between robbery and burglery being where someone is in the
house or not. One gets harder look because there is a terrified victim and
escalation could've meant death. The other is just property loss.

~~~
zip1234
Randomly put a guy in 1/5 trucks but make the guy not visible. Loudly state on
the outside of the trucks that many trucks are manned. Criminals have no way
of knowing which trucks have people and which don't.

------
adam_gyroscope
I walk past the Uber/Otto trucks every day (three or four are kept on Harrison
St in San Francisco between 3rd and 4th), and while the trucks are still their
with their very visible lidar/cameras/etc, in the last week they've removed
all mentions of Otto from the trucks (previously they had the Otto branding on
the doors).

~~~
julien_c
Do you have any pictures? I'd be interested in seeing them.

~~~
smnscu
[https://www.google.com/search?q=otto+trucks&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=otto+trucks&tbm=isch)

~~~
adam_gyroscope
Yep! Specifically:
[https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.files.wordpress.com/2017/...](https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/otto_trucks_in_san_francisco.jpg?w=640)
(that's them parked in the lot on Harrison) and then you'd erase all the OTTO
branding :)

------
michaelbuckbee
I thought the logic of pursuing self-driving trucks was that it was generally
easier than self driving taxi services:

\- Mostly highway miles (or you could arrange it to be so) \- Fewer weight
requirements \- Better economics (a greater % of the economy is dependent upon
trucking logistics than taxi services)

This isn't to say that there's a big master plan of making a trucking company,
more that making a self driving trucking company is a very practical step on
the path to full autonomy.

~~~
placeybordeaux
My impression is that Uber simply can't afford to not be the absolute first in
driverless taxis. They're burning money to stay in the taxi business. Their
entire business model relies on keeping the price somewhere in the range of
what it is now and not paying a driver.

It might be that the marginal advantage of not having a driver on the highway
section of truck delivery is not large enough to justify building out a
trucking network. They'd have to establish relationships, buy trucks, service
the trucks etc. all of that would be time and money that isn't going into
their big bet.

~~~
ghaff
I've said this before, but this just seems crazy to me. Nothing I see suggests
that 100% autonomous door-to-door driving as a commercially offered service is
just around the corner. Even if it reliably worked technically you're still
years away from being able to offer it to the public. Not even Uber could
flaunt the law that flagrantly.

And the thing is that we're not there. Even if you say it's a decade out
(which seems pie in the sky optimistic to me), can Uber really afford to burn
through cash for another 10 years?

[ADDED: I didn't make my point well. I do think legal/regulatory will take
some time independent of technical readiness, but IMO it's technical readiness
especially in all the corner cases that's the long pole.]

~~~
kjksf
Elon Musk stated that their technology is 2 years away from full autonomous
driving. Tesla is planning LA -> NY fully autonomic drive by end of this year.

Waymo has already started a real pilot of fully autonomic driving for regular
people in Phoenix area. I predict that means they are less than 1 year away
from ditching training wheels and launching it fully.

Some think that changing laws to make legal will be the hard part but I see
the opposite: states will be competing for who's first to make it possible.

Many states, including CA, already made testing possible. You just sign up and
ask "can I test my self-driving cars, on real roads, possibly destroying other
cars on those roads and killing people. Pretty please?".

Laws are hard when they're controversial and self-driving cars are political
goldmine:

* dramatically less deaths and other kinds of destruction due to less accidents

* cheaper transportation

* the sheer coolness of self-driving

It'll take only few states in US to allow it and other states will have to
follow or the politicians will look very stupid if a taxi drive in SF costs $1
and the same is $10 in Chicago.

No-one will have to flaunt the law, it'll get changed very quickly.

~~~
paulcole
>Tesla is planning LA -> NY fully autonomic drive by end of this year.

But that's not really a very impressive feat compared to 3-5 days of non-stop
driving in NYC. I mean who cares if it can go cross-country? I want it to take
me from my apartment to the office to the grocery store to Target out to
dinner and then back home again.

Hundreds and hundreds (probably >1,000 even) of those cross-country miles are
going to be desolate and essentially carless.

~~~
placeybordeaux
If I could get something close to an RV that could do the highway section to a
national park or another major US city while letting 2+ people sleep in the
back I'd be very interested in getting that and doing a very cheap vacation
across the country.

As it is driving on a boring highway all day and finding a hotel at night
sucks. I'd much rather leave the driving to the night while we sleep.

------
Fricken
It's not exactly news that the Otto team went straight to work on cars after
the acquisition.

Nor is it news that Levandowski and Kalanick hatched this scheme while
Levandowski was still with Google. (read the second from top comment):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12315205](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12315205)

------
sebleon
Uber is likely keeping a low profile with its autonomous initiatives until the
Waymo lawsuit blows overs.

I'm sure we can expect big things from them as soon as that lawsuit ends.

------
no1youknowz
Wouldn't it be disastrous to do so?

Elon Musk said that Tesla will be releasing an electric truck in the later
part of this year [1].

Of course, self driving capabilities will be added afterwards.

Wouldn't it make sense for Uber to have this very same capability as well?

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgMqaDlPONA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgMqaDlPONA)

------
pfarnsworth
lol dozens of paragraphs of speculation, and then Uber directly denies it at
the very end. Talk about a waste of a read. This pretty much summarizes most
blog articles these days.

