Self-driving tech startup Waabi has deployed its first robot trucks and intends to commercialize its system faster than bigger, wealthier competitors.Autonomous driving startup Waabi just deployed its first robotic semi-trucks for on-road testing in the U.S., a little over a year after it came out of stealth, and founder Raquel Urtasun thinks it may be able to commercialize the technology faster than bigger, better-funded “previous-generation” rivals.
“Because we can do everything on the simulator we are already ready with a generation that is much more advanced,” she tells. For example, even the placement of cameras and laser lidar and other sensors that Waabi’s test trucks need to see their surroundings were optimized as a result of extensive simulator testing, rather than by trial and error on the road.
Still, there are questions about the company’s future at the moment. Urtasun declined to say which truckmakers and trucking companies Waabi will be working with, whether its test trucks will be hauling revenue-generating loads and how soon the system will be available for commercial sale or licensing. Its first trucks will operate in a U.S. state she didn’t name and though Urtasun also wouldn’t say how many it’s testing,, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“The negative sentiment actually affects the previous generation of companies. It’s becoming more and more clear that the technology is not there and it may take a very long time, if ever, to be solved with that approach,” she says. “They are very capital intensive and when the economy, the markets look like they look today, that is extremely hard when you have a burn rate of half a billion, $1 billion or $2 billion.
Trains. On tracks. Away from cars.
Please don't bring these robots in Githurai Kenya.
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