28.04.2020 12:00

Self-Driving Startups Work Through Health Crisis

Investor-funded startups competing hard to commercialize highly automated heavy-duty trucks found themselves having to deal with unfamiliar territory in late March given the uncertainties and disruptions from the spread of the novel coronavirus — just like the rest of the trucking industry.

Two companies, Ike and Kodiak Robotics, recently made the difficult choice to let some employees go.

Meanwhile, as the nation applauds the essential role trucking plays during a prolonged crisis, some company executives told Transport Topics they all see their technologies eventually expanding that vital role in new and better ways.

For the most part, these developers aim to enable what SAE International has defined as Level 4 automated driving, in which the truck can drive itself under certain conditions without any driver input or backup assistance.

A further shaking out in the segment is possible, one CEO said. In February, self-driving trucking firm Starsky Robotics shut down after failing to raise additional venture capital to support its remote-controlled, or teleoperated, approach.

The latest economic challenges are likely to pose another test and lead to consolidation in the self-driving truck space, “leaving the strongest companies to emerge in a better position to deliver a real product to the industry,” Ike co-founder and CEO Alden Woodrow said.

More importantly, he said, “this crisis has highlighted how critical trucking, and truck drivers, are to our economy and our way of life. We hope that appreciation continues as our nation emerges from the pandemic, including an increased understanding of how automation can directly benefit people, especially those putting themselves in harm’s way to keep our economy moving.”

The uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 crisis, however, forced Ike to let go of an unspecified number of “valued colleagues,” who are now being supporting with several months of severance and other support, according to a company statement.

The investment we’ve made in technologies like cloud infrastructure and simulation have allowed Ike to keep making rapid progress even while our prototype vehicles wait out California’s shelter-in-place rules,” Woodrow said. “As we highlighted in our safety report last fall, by design we don’t need to do brute force testing on public roads in order to develop our technology. This allows us to fulfill our responsibility to flatten the curve by having our entire team work remotely and help minimize the risk to essential workers.”

Kodiak Robotics reduced its headcount by 15 employees, responding to what it called COVID-19’s dramatic economic impact and uncertainty.

“While this is not a decision anyone ever wants to make, we’re confident this is the right way to position Kodiak for the future,” CEO Don Burnette said.

 Emirates to offer daily flights to Toronto from 20 April
08 Apr
12:00
Emirates to offer daily flights to Toronto from 20 April

From 20 April, daily flights will operate on the busy route to serve huge demand for passenger services

 Jet2holidays says Bonjour to the South of France
06 Apr
18:00
Jet2holidays says Bonjour to the South of France

Ahead of the 20th anniversary of Jet2.com operating award-winning flights to Nice on Saturday