Want to Buy a Self-Driving Car? Big-Rig Trucks May Come First

Do you think autonomous trucks will still be able to blow the air horn for school children?

Otto, a Bay Area-based autonomous mobility startup, announced Tuesday morning that it has been testing self-driving semi trucks on American freeways.

Moreover, it aims to retrofit big rigs with its autonomous driving unique sensors, hardware and software in order to revolutionize the trucking industry.

Essentially, it wants to make America's 4.3 million semi trucks autonomous.

Founded earlier this year by former Apple, Cruise and Google employees, the 40-employee, self-funded startup has been operating three retrofitted Volvo VLN 780 semis in California.

It hasn't said how many miles it's logged nor has it specified how much its systems cost. However, Otto does estimate that the price of its autonomous drive system would be a "small fraction" of the $100,000 to $200,000 price tag of a brand-new semi truck.

Otto isn't the only company testing autonomous trucks, though. Mercedes platooned a trio of trucks across Europe in April. Clearly, it's an area that's ripe for revolution.

Not only are autonomous systems safer drivers than humans from the get-go, they can drive for longer periods of time without getting fatigued. This, as you might imagine, makes them even safer on a long-haul drive — not to mention slash the number of hours from door to door, as computers don't need sleep.

It'll be interesting to see how and when autonomy enters the trucking market. Trucking represents a sizable number of well-paying jobs for Americans. Removing people from behind the wheel altogether could make a big impact on the job market. Because of the number jobs at stake with the implementation of the tech, it's likely to receive more pushback than self-driving commuter vehicles.

I assume that the tech will be implemented sooner than later, though. But, as a compromise to preserve jobs, humans will be required behind the wheel, even if the truck is doing the driving. Funnily enough, this was predicted by The Simpsons, in the 1999 episode "Maximum Homerdrive."