Embark Sets Out to Create Driverless Commercial Semi-Trucks
A startup company based in San Mateo, California named Embark is working to develop self-driving technology that can power commercial trucks, and in turn, improve the lives of truck drivers across the country.
Trucks equipped with Embark’s technology would drive autonomously on highways without a human on board, making trips from city to city. Human drivers would be responsible for initially getting the trucks to the highway at the beginning of a trip, and off the highway at the end of a trip.
According to the company’s co-founder and CEO Alex Rodrigues, who is just 21 years old, the idea for this technology is to actually help combat a potential future shortage of truck drivers, instead of taking away truck driver's jobs.
“The American Transportation Research Institute estimates there is currently a shortage of 100,000 truck drivers in the industry, which is poised to only get worse as baby boomer drivers — the bulk of the industry’s workforce — retire over the next decade,” Rodrigues says through the Business Journal.
“Embark's goal is to increase productivity per driver and prevent the shortage from becoming a crisis.”
Thus far, a test truck equipped with Embark’s technology has logged more than 10,000 hours on the roads of Nevada. The technology is powered by an onboard radar, cameras and lidar sensors, and those technologies work in coordination with military-grade GPS, which helps track the truck’s position and monitor its environment.
According to Embark, information obtained from the technology is processed through a form of artificial intelligence that gives the truck the ability to learn from its experiences on the road.
Currently, Embark is being backed by Maven Ventures, the same company that backed Cruise Automation, which was bought last year by General Motors for $1 billion.
While Rodrigues doesn’t have an exact timeline for when his company’s technology will be available commercially, he does believe that the time is “much closer to now than a decade from now.” Until then, he is focused on making sure that when that day comes, the technology will be at its absolute best.
“We are committed to proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that this technology is safe and reliable,” he says. “That means performing extensive tests and working with our partners in the government to get it — and the market — ready.”
