Love Pulse Posted February 12, 2022 Posted February 12, 2022 https://www.msn.com/ar-ae/money/news/شاحنات-ذاتية-القيادة-تستعد-لتولّي-مهمّة-النقل-على-طرقات-تكساس/ar-AATh13U A gigantic truck is driving on a Texas multi-lane highway without a driver behind the wheel... This seemingly fanciful futuristic idea is being tested in the vast southern US state of Texas that has become the center of an expanding industry of self-driving vehicles. These trucks undergo several tests to ensure their safety before they take the roads. The self-driving trucks are powered by radars, laser scanners, cameras and GPS antennas connected to the driving software. “Every time we drive a mile or kilometer in real life, we repeat the process a thousand times on the computer by changing hundreds of elements,” says Pierre-François Le Vau, director of collaboration projects at the self-driving company Waymo, a subsidiary of the “Alphabet” group that owns Google. ". Waymo is building a logistics center in Dallas that will accommodate hundreds of self-driving trucks. But it is not alone in working on this promising field. Its competitor, Embark, a startup in the field of self-driving technology, is running self-driving truck operations between Houston and San Antonio, while Aurora, which was co-founded by a former employee of the company, intends to Waymo, opened three stations and a track of more than 1,000 km this year in Texas. None of these companies agreed to display one of their vehicles to AFP, in evidence of the huge competition that exists in the field of self-driving transport trucks. - Lax laws - "Everyone working in the autonomous trucking sector is in Texas, even if they don't admit it," says Srikanth Saripalli, director of the Center for Autonomous Vehicles and Sensors at Texas A&M University. The companies did not choose Texas by chance, as this state has the largest number of truck drivers in addition to efficient engineers, in addition to the fact that its sunny weather is very suitable for truck sensors, and its neighbor Mexico exports 85 percent of its goods to it by land. The state's two cities, Houston and Dallas, are major shipping hubs, and the space in Texas is ideal for long-distance transportation. Most importantly, local laws are lenient on self-driving vehicles. In 2018, Texas passed a law that gave self-driving cars the same legal status as regular cars. "All you need in Texas is to have insurance and follow the traffic laws, this state has no other rules that you have to follow," Saripalli says. With the presence of large areas in the United States and the fact that the trucking sector is an essential part of the economy of this country, companies see the self-driving system as a way to reduce costs and reduce risks, because vehicles that operate according to this technology do not get tired and do not require periods of rest, unlike what happens in Trucking operations driven by chauffeurs. And while it takes a driver three days to drive a truck from Los Angeles to Dallas, a large, self-driving vehicle can accomplish the same task within 24 hours, Aurora estimates. Embark considers that the cost of transporting a self-driving truck is about two times cheaper than shipping with conventional vehicles, as this cost per mile drops from $1.76 to $0.96 if the truck is self-driving. - Jobs at risk - Alex Rodriguez, CEO and co-founder of Embark Technology, stresses that the use of self-driving trucks is important in combating the current shortage of long-distance truck drivers in the United States, many of whom do not want to be away from their family for weeks at a time. this mission. "Currently, containers are piling up in the port of Los Angeles and there is no one to transport them," Rodrigues says. He believes that transporting self-driving trucks will contribute to creating "attractive" job opportunities for local drivers, who will receive these trucks from transport points and control them until their final destination. However, a 2018 study by University of California Berkeley sociologist Steve Vesely suggests that resorting to these trucks would threaten 294,000 jobs. Julio Moscoso, a 56-year-old Texas driver, considers the arrival of self-driving trucks "not good news." He explains that the large number of jobs currently available in the trucking sector did not always exist, noting that "there was not a lot of job opportunities" in intermittent periods during the past two years. He expresses his distrust of self-driving trucks, considering them to be dangerous. "What will happen if the sensors fail?" he asks. But at the same time, he admits he doesn't want to drive long distances anymore, and finds sleeping in the cabin uncomfortable as well as not being able to shower every day.
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