Aurora Starts Self-Driving Commercial Service In Texas

Aurora launches self-driving commercial services in Texas, marking an important milestone in the company's growth. Aurora's share price fell nearly 3% despite the stock market gains. Aurora originally planned to launch the service in April, but eventually delayed the announcement to May. The company was founded by Urmson and executives from Uber ATG and Tesla Autopilot and acquired it after a tragedy caused Uber ATG to cease operations.

Although Aurora is not the first company to achieve autonomous driving, it is still of great significance to operate a Level 8 semi-truck in actual commercial operations, mainly due to physical factors. A truck with a speed of 70 mph and 80,000 pounds has more than fifty times the kinetic energy of a Waymo self-driving taxi that is 40 mph. Although Waymo has also had accidents—all vehicles will have accidents—the consequences are minor. (Waymo also released new safety data today, showing that its accident rate is much lower than that of human drivers.) The consequences will be very serious when colliding with a 40-ton semi-truck, and Aurora must work to avoid this.

One way to avoid accidents is to drive on a relatively simple interstate in Texas, although Aurora plans to operate in more complex environments. It will also travel on non-highways, from highway exits to warehouses, but at a slower speed. Waymo and all other self-driving taxi operators have refused to carry passengers on the highway due to the same concerns, although Waymo has been operating empty vehicles and vehicles carrying employees on the highway for some time. Aurora's trucks do not carry passengers, except for the occasional CEO, test engineer or demonstration personnel, and the losses caused by damage to the goods are controllable - the biggest risk lies in other road users.

Aurora has now completed about 1,200 miles of unmanned mileage (a little more than 2 round trips), but reports have traveled 10,000 vehicles, a total of 3 million miles, accompanied by safety drivers (and some interventions, as they described in their safety reports over the past few years). They will ship goods for Uber Freight, which acts as the middleman for booking goods, and the first shipments will be shipped in partnership with Hirschbach Motor Lines.

Compared with autonomous taxis, autonomous freight has different value propositions. The latter is expected to rewrite personal traffic rules and how we live and cities work, and reduce costs. The benefits of autonomous cargo transportation are mainly reflected in the following aspects, but first of all:

1. Reduce freight accidents (4,000 people die in truck accidents every year in the United States, most of which are drivers).
2. Make freight more reliable. Drivers are well-known to "rest" during the trip or leave as planned.
3. Make freight faster. The driver's driving time is limited to 11 hours per day. Two drivers can drive for 22 hours at a higher cost. The robot still needs fueling and maintenance, but other than that, it can run 24/7.
4. Reduce costs by not paying for manual drivers, although warehouses and some other functions still require manual labor.

The fourth point angers the Teamsters, who are currently pushing a law in Colorado (and several other states) that requires that there must be someone in the vehicle (preferably a member of the Truck Driver Union). (Sarcastic writers wonder why there is no mandatory requirement for someone to shovel coal into the engine as well.) While many people sympathize with the threat of employment, few other jobs (except doctors) can cause so many deaths. Fortunately, there is a serious shortage of truck drivers at present, so it will take some time for self-driving trucks to pose a threat to careers, although they do plan to change the economy soon.

Aurora's trucks won't travel in strong winds, heavy rains, or (rare) snowy days in Texas. They plan to improve this over time. Aurora's trucks are also equipped with remote monitoring and remote assist systems. If Aurora is like any other autonomous driving company, it will monitor its early empty vehicle operations 24/7, and will do so for a while. (Aurora did not respond to inquiries about this issue in a timely manner.) Remote monitoring personnel may be able to order the vehicle to "minimum risk" or even stop urgently. Remote assist operators cannot drive trucks remotely, but can issue instructions to them about parking over, changing lanes, driving off the road, and turning.

Aurora said that although Urmson sat in the back seat, he could not do it if he wanted to intervene. This means that Aurora has to disable normal systems such as the "Big Red Button" emergency stop switch, and systems that are often found in autonomous driving test vehicles that will disengage the vehicle if anyone grabs the steering wheel or presses the brakes.

Only Tesla said that if and when they expect to deploy their self-driving taxis to the public in June, they will do "unsupervised" driving, i.e., people who have no (remote or in-vehicle) to intervene.

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