Tesla's Semi makes first deliveries; Waymo, Uber expand driverless truck testing
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk announced late last week the company conducted the first production cargo trips of its electric Semi.
Musk posted a photo of two Class 8 trucks on Instagram and said they were transporting battery packs from the Gigafactory in Nevada to the company’s car factory in Nevada, a distance of about 240 miles each way.
In the days that followed, media outlets reported sightings of the Semis on the highway and at a supercharger station near Sacramento, CA.
Tesla has not issued any additional comment on the shipment beyond Musk’s social media posting.
Separately, Waymo said in a blog posting it is about to begin testing self-driving trucks around Atlanta area with human backup drivers.
The company will use Peterbilt trucks to deliver server racks and related freight headed to Google’s data centers. The company has already have been testing self-driving trucks in California and Arizona.
Not be to outdone, Uber said its freight unit was hauling consumer goods in Arizona with the use of using self-driving semis, also with human backup drivers.
Several weeks ago, Starsky Robotics said it intends to make driverless deliveries in the company’s trucks by the end of 2018. That announcement came not long after Embark said it completed a cross-country journey in an autonomous truck from California to Florida.
