Self-driving cars are becoming increasingly popular. They are convenient and are safe once they are in abundance. For businesses, it is believed that self-driving cars are also good for efficiency. This is according to TuSimple, a company focused on self-driving tech for heavy-duty trucks.
The company aimed to discover how self-driving trucks worked when compared to trucks driven by humans. They loaded a truck with watermelons and drove it from Arizona to Oklahoma. The truck had a human driver behind the wheel for the first 60 or so miles, but after that, it was driven by the computer entirely.
According to the driving time, the truck took about 14 hours and 6 minutes to complete the journey. This is 10 hours faster than if a human driver were to do it. This can be a huge leap in logistics as delivery times can be reduced massively, which in turn could help companies restock faster, manufacture goods faster, and so much more.
The results were expected to be like this because humans need rest and there is a law that prevents truck drivers from being on the road for longer than 14 consecutive hours, meaning that at some point in time, they will have to stop and rest, which no doubt adds to the overall trip’s duration.