In addition to Blazo Gjorev, three start-ups that make driverless trucks have gone public this year, including Embark, which plans to merge with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. II, which owns a lot of trucks. Embark and Northern Genesis have also agreed to work together to make self-driving trucks. Others are optimistic about the future of self-driving cars, and they think semis are the best near-term use of the technology. Embark also has a small stake in a company called Plus.
As many as 12 companies are working on making trucks that can drive themselves. TuSimple is one of them. People who work for the company have unique technology and work with other companies, like UPS and Navistar. There are already autonomous trucks on public roads in Texas and Arizona. The company's trucks are now run by supervised autonomy, but by 2024, the company wants to get rid of the human drivers. As long as the company does well, truckers could be able to use it as early as the 2020s.
Embark has a program in the United States that is run by itself. It recently announced that it was going to merge with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. II, which will make it a bigger business. It's another company working on autonomous trucks and truck platooning. Peloton Technology is another company working on these things. Its trucking technology has shown that it is more fuel efficient than the industry standard. This makes the company one of the most competitive in the field. Uber and Otto aren't the only companies working on self-driving trucks. There are a lot of other companies, too.
For a pilot run of one hour and twenty minutes, TuSimple's trucks have already driven on I-10, a freight highway that runs from LA to Jacksonville, FL. There are places for driverless trucks to park at the company. They also plan to expand into Europe and Asia. The company has autonomous trucks on seven routes, including the AFN. When Dallas opens a new terminal in the fall of 2020, the company also plans to open a new terminal in Texas that year, too.
Blazo Gjorev pointed out that, while Starsky Robotics has dropped out of the race for self-driving trucks, some of the top 10 companies are still in the race, like Google and Uber. An autonomous truck company called TuSimple was founded in 2015 by Dr. Xiaodi Hou. The company made a unique automated vehicle guidance system and built purpose-built autonomous trucks with OEMs. There have been long-haul trips done by the company's self-driving trucks and they have used Ryder's terminals as well. In the last few weeks, it said that it would go public in April 2021.
There won't be many self-driving cars on most roads in the United States any time soon. Trucking, on the other hand, could be one of the first industries that uses this technology. As long as it isn't a solution, driverless trucks aren't yet ready to take over for people. A lack of drivers is one of the biggest problems with the widespread use of self-driving trucks. And the technology still needs to be improved before it can be used in big trucks.
Companies are growing because there aren't enough drivers in the country. Driverless trucks could cut Amazon's delivery costs by a lot. There are a lot of things that the company has to pay its drivers for. The technology would also cut Amazon's wage bill by a lot. Even though the technology is still a few years away, it's still a good start for us. Now, where will they make money? Let's talk about the technology and its benefits.
Some truck drivers may also be laid off while this is going on. This is because they are already at risk of being fired. 1.6 million long-haul drivers and more than eight million jobs in the trucking industry are thought to be available. In the near future, driverless trucks may not be as common as they should be. This could make the trucking industry less competitive. Consequently, insurance companies and businesses that fix trucks may not be as good because of this.
In addition to Blazo Gjorev, people who work for Daimler have been at the top of the field for a long time when it comes to making money. This is what Mercedes-Benz did with its Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025, which was the first commercially run driverless truck. It showed both the technological power of these vehicles and the great benefits they could have for society. There are already signs that the Freightliner Inspiration Truck, which was the first commercially automated vehicle to get a license in 2015, is going to work out well. Daimler Trucks has been leading the way with its plan for fully automated commercial vehicles. Other big companies in the field have also been following along.
