UPS Has Been Delivering Cargo in Self-Driving Trucks for Months And No One Knew

Most of the press around autonomous vehicles focuses on cars and yet it is in trucking that the most commercially viable advances in autonomous driving are being made. Last week we learnt that: “The self-driving freight truck startup TuSimple has been carrying mail across the state of Arizona for several weeks.
UPS announced on Thursday that its venture capital arm has made a minority investment in TuSimple. The announcement also revealed that since May TuSimple autonomous trucks have been hauling UPS loads on a 115-mile route between Phoenix and Tucson.”
In parallel, UPS and TuSimple have also announced “a two-week pilot program to deliver mail between Phoenix and Dallas, a 1,000 mile trip.”
If successful, autonomous trucks could cut the cost of moving cargo in America: “TuSimple claims it can cut the average cost of shipping in a tractor-trailer by 30 percent.”