Start-up Aims To Transform The Truck-Driving Experience With Autonomous Technology

What happens when former Google employees that were involved in autonomous driving technology get together? They form a company that wants to transform transportation by getting self-driving trucks on the roads of America.

Former Technical Lead of Google’s autonomous car division Anthony Levandowski and former Product Lead of Google Maps Lior Ron have gotten together to start a company called Otto — and recruited the help of former Apple and Tesla employees.

Otto wants to design a new approach to modern transportation, and it’s starting with trucks.

According to the company’s founders, long-haul transit is necessary for almost 70% of the things we buy, however what we don’t hear much about is the hundreds of thousands of preventable trucking accidents that occur each year in America.

In order to create safer, self-driving technology, Otto has developed hardware and software tuned for the consistent patterns and road conditions of highway driving. The company installed sensors onto the tops of existing trucks to offer vehicles a view of the road ahead, along with various other autonomous-driving safety features.

Now, the company is testing the technology on highways with its research fleet of trucks. Recently, it even completed an autonomous demo of the technology on a public highway.

According to an Otto blog post written by co-founders Anthony Levandowski and Lior Ron:

“We intend to enhance the capabilities of the Otto truck, collect safety data to demonstrate its benefits, and bring this technology to every corner of the U.S. highway system.This is a critical effort, with wide reaching implications for all of us, that requires cooperation between government agencies, the private sector, truck fleets, drivers, manufacturers and the brightest engineers. It’s time to move.”