Page 20 - Demo

TuSimple has been trialling its autonomous system in trucks in China and the US
Truckies win trips
THREE ISUZU BUYERS ARE OFF ON A SLAP-UP TRIP TO
the truckmaker’s Japanese factory this month, courtesy of a recent sales promotion.
R. Dhankar’s purchase of a light-duty NLR250S AMT from CAL Isuzu in Auckland secured him the two business class tickets to Tokyo, while Road Transport Logistics also earned a trip for two through its purchase of a medium-duty FVR1000M through Cooke Howlison.
Opotiki-based Seymours Transport Services Group bought a new heavy-duty CYH530D from CAL Tauranga to secure its place on the visit to Isuzu’s Fujisawa truck plant, in Kanagawa.
In the photo above, Bev and Charlie Seymour (third and fourth from left) receive their prize from Holden NZ MD Kristian Aquilina (fourth from right), as (from left) CAL Isuzu’s Kevin Curran, Ralph Blackburn, Graham Waugh, Steve Hoyne and Ashok Parbhu look on. T&D
New Mack man
MACK TRUCKS HAS APPOINTED GLEN KEANE A NEW
account manager for the Bay of Plenty, Waikato and Gisborne area. Keane has a trucking background – his father drove for Provincial Transport and he completed a diesel apprenticeship with Herb’s Vehicle
Repairs, gaining experience on a wide range of equipment.
Once quali ed, Keane spent 12 years specialising on Volvo Group trucks – working for ve years on them in Wellington, then putting in a similar stint with the Mack/Volvo dealer in Mackay, Queensland. For
the last two years he’s worked at Truck Stops, Mount Maunganui. T&D
NEWS
Chinese self-driving trucks working soon
A CHINESE SELF-DRIVING TRUCK DEVELOPER SAYS
it’s aiming to launch unmanned trucks in port operations later this year. e TuSimple startup, which last year was boosted by $US20million backing from US graphic chip giant NVIDIA, says it’s talking with about
10 Chinese port operators towards that end.
Co-founder and chief operating o cer Hao Jianan, says: “Autonomous
logistics solutions will be more cost e cient for ports. It represents the trend to follow in the future.”
Trucks equipped with TuSimple’s autonomous driving system have been involved in trials, loading and unloading containers at a Chinese port...which also uses autonomously-operated cranes.
Assistant president Xue Jiancong says the company is “preparing for a full commercialisation by 2020.” He says it’s continuing its research in co-operation with major truckmakers in China and the US towards the production of autonomous trucks.
Its level four autonomous truck technology – allowing trucks to operate without drivers in most situations – has so far been retro- tted to standard trucks, including those built by the Shaanxi Automobile Group in China.
TuSimple is one of a number of Chinese startups racing to commercialise autonomous truck operations – competing with the likes of Uber, Google’s Waymo and Tesla.
While many US states are now allowing varying levels of autonomous vehicle testing on public roads, so far Beijing and Shanghai are the only two Chinese cities to allow it.
But Chinese transport minister Li Xiaopeng several months ago said more test areas are coming – along with industry guidelines for
operating self-driving vehicles. He pointed out that self-piloting ships and autonomous trains are being developed.
NVIDIA announced its investment in TuSimple last year, after the Chinese company’s technology successfully completed a fully-autonomous drive over 320 kilometres from San Diego to Arizona – using NVIDIA graphics processing units and cameras as its primary sensors.
TuSimple’s chief technology o cer Xiaodi Hou said then that “by combining NVIDIA technology with our expertise in computer vision and arti cial intelligence, we’re building a world-class platform that will disrupt the freight industry.” T&D
18 | Truck & Driver