Hyperdrive
Alphabet's Waymo Takes on Freight in Atlanta Driverless Semis
- Pilot testing starts next week with back-up driver in cab
- Companies racing to remove the driver from long-haul trucking
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Look out, truckers. Waymo, the self-driving vehicle unit of Alphabet Inc., is taking its driverless truck tests to Atlanta, and this time they’ll be carrying cargo.
Waymo will start testing a fleet of autonomous freight trucks in Georgia’s capital next week that will take deliveries to Google’s data centers. The company has already been conducting road tests for the self-driving Semis in California and Arizona for the past year, but this new pilot lets Waymo expand its understanding of how shippers and carriers will integrate the trucks into their distribution networks.