This week Daimler gained the first license to operate self-driving trucks in Nevada.
The state certified two “Freightliner Inspiration Trucks” for regular operation on public roads, the company said this week. Both trucks are based on the series-produced US Freightliner Cascadia model, but with added technology to offer autonomous driving. The “Highway Pilot technology,” as it is called, uses front-facing radar and a stereo camera system, allowing the trucks to operate at highway cruising speeds as well as stop-and-go traffic. The trucks will adhere to speed limits automatically and regulate distances between the next vehicle using both a high- and low-angle sensor to monitor traffic immediately ahead and up to 820 feet in the distance.
Daimler’s Freightliner Inspiration Trucks still require a qualified truck driver to operate. The autonomous technology they employ can be activated once the truck reaches a highway and is not capable of passing other vehicles, changing lanes or exiting the highway.
Because of the technology’s semi-autonomous nature, Daimler said it will not threaten truck driving jobs. Instead, the company said it expects the system to relieve a large portion of the workload associated with those jobs, opening truck drivers to fulfill other tasks that dispatchers currently fill.
Daimler first demonstrated the technology last year in July on a closed section of the autobahn with its “Future Truck 2025.”