A Chinese start-up with powerful backing plans to test a fleet of self-driving trucks in Arizona and Shanghai next year, competing with Uber Technologies Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Waymo in transforming the way goods are delivered.
Haulage is ripe for disruption by automation because the industry faces a growing shortage of drivers and transporting cargo between fixed points is less complicated than city driving, said Chen Mo (陳默), 33, cofounder and chief executive officer of Beijing-based Tusimple (圖森未來科技), which is backed by Sina Corp (新浪), operator of China’s biggest microblogging site.
Self-driving trucks could cut logistics costs by 40 percent in the US and 25 percent in China, as they can run longer than human-piloted rigs without rest and save at least 10 percent on fuel, Chen said.
They could also improve safety, especially in China, where trucks kill about 25,000 people a year, according to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.
“It’s natural for us to start the business simultaneously as both countries feature a trucker shortage and huge cargo transportation demand,” Chen said in an interview in his office in Beijing. “China’s trucking industry is costly, inefficient and dangerous” and Tusimple’s technology “can reduce the casualty rate to 25 percent of the current level.”
The start-up plans to order 60 to 100 specially retrofitted trucks for the tests from a US truckmaker and China’s Shaanxi Heavy Duty Motor Co (陝西重型汽車). The vehicles are to have 10 cameras, three radars and a control system to analyze traffic conditions.
The plan, regulations permitting, is to introduce commercial services in 2019, initially on two routes: A 193km highway stretch between Tucson and Phoenix in Arizona, and a 32km leg between a Shanghai port and warehouse, after completing 4.8 million kilometers of road tests in a year.
Instead of selling the automation technology to logistics firms or fleet owners, Tusimple plans to get into the haulage business.
The industry in China is more fragmented than in the US, with large numbers of truck owners who lack proper training or insurance, Chen said.
Tusimple would be ahead of Uber and Waymo to start road tests in China, where nine out of 10 of the nation’s 30 million truckers are individuals subcontracted by logistics companies.
China hauled 30.5 billion tonnes of cargo last year, compared with 9.4 billion tonnes in the US.
Nearly 30 percent of Chinese truckers have driver fatigue that can lead to slower reaction and inability to keep their eyes open during the early morning and afternoon, according to G7 Networks, a Beijing-based vehicle connectivity technology company that tracks data with equipment on commercial vehicles.
Chinese drivers earn an average 300,000 yuan (US$46,000) for running 100,000km per year and younger drivers are opting for jobs like couriers in cities that pay more, the G7 study said.
Tusimple has no plans to develop driverless passenger cars as intracity driving is much more complex than highway piloting and there is less of a discernible return in terms of business costs in removing the human driver from a private-hire car, Chen said.
Those economics have attracted others.
Tesla Inc met with California and Nevada agencies about testing an autonomous semi-truck after chief executive officer Elon Musk tweeted his ambition to add driverless trucks to the line-up.
Waymo — spun off from Google’s self-driving car project — in June said that it is exploring integrating its hardware and software into a truck.
Uber’s truck division is focused on developing self-driving technology in the US, a media representative for the company said in an e-mail.
The US Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is to hold a hearing on Wednesday to examine autonomous commercial vehicles and how they might fit into the Senate’s self-driving vehicle legislation.
US House of Representatives lawmakers passed a wide-ranging bill to speed the introduction of self-driving vehicles, applying only to passenger cars and light trucks.
Tusimple has raised a total of US$27.5 million so far from a group of investors, including Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia Corp, which also provides graphic chips to Tesla.
The start-up aims to raise another US$150 million before seeking an initial public offering in the next few years, Chen said, without giving a specific timetable.
In June, Tusimple completed a 320km Level 4 test drive from San Diego to Yuma, Arizona, using an Nvidia graphics-processing unit and cameras as primary sensors.
Level 4 is industry-speak for vehicles that can pilot themselves in almost all environments and will stop safely if the human driver does not respond to a request for them to take over.
The ultimate goal is Level 5 — no steering wheel, brake pedal or human required.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last