A Convoy Of Self-Driving Trucks Completes Major Journey Across Europe

Much of the auto and tech industry appears to be convinced that self-driving cars are the future, which is why you see both auto and tech companies working and investing to achieve a future where autonomous cars are a reality. The technology can also be used in trucks as has been demonstrated before and today an entire convoy of self-driving trucks completed its first major journey across Europe.

Organizers of The European Truck Platooning Challenge say that this successful journey shows that the future of transport is very bright in Europe. Self-driving trucks from six different manufacturers were involved in this challenge,

The pace and route were set by a driver in the lead vehicle of the convoy with the other trucks following it on their own, braking and acceleration of all trucks were kept in sync using a Wi-Fi connection, but not the steering.

It’s not a fully autonomous system that the likes of Google have shown but it goes to show how this technology can progress from here. Platooning with self-driving cars could eventually mean fewer accidents, less congestion on the highways and reduced impact on the environment due to lower fuel consumption.

Trucks only traveled in a platoon on highways with normal traffic conditions, each vehicle has a human in the driving seat to take over should anything go wrong, which it didn’t. The challenge shows that this technology works and that it can be put to good use, but there are a lot of legal and regulatory hurdles to jump before any of this becomes a reality. That might be the topic of discussion at the next meeting of the European transport council on April 14th.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Transportation
Tags: self driving