Otto

From labor shortages to demand for ever-improved operational flexibility, this typically ignored class of trucks offers a chance to rethink your processes and even how you approach materials handling.

There is a lot of work being done behind the scenes involving some of the biggest names in and out of transportation, when it comes to driverless cars and trucks.

Google's Waymo autonomous tech lawsuit against Uber and specifically against Anthony Levandowski, a former Waymo employee who left the company to start autonomous truck driving firm Otto, which Uber purchased for nearly $700 million, looks really bad for Uber.

The world's first shipment by a self-driving truck included 51,744 cans of Budweiser beer, with a tractor-trailer outfitted with Otto's self-driving kit hauling the beer 120 miles along Colorado's Interstate 25 on Oct. 20.

Uber’s recent acquisition of self-driving truck startup company Otto last August turned a lot of heads in the trucking and logistics sectors, and this week it officially began to do the same over the road, hauling more than 50,000 cans, 51,744 to be exact, of Budweiser in Colorado from Fort Collins, through downtown Denver, to Colorado Springs, for a 120-mile haul, which Otto said represents the completion of the world’s first shipment by a self-driving truck.

Uber’s Otto co-founder promises the expansion of fleet, technology testing, partnerships with independent truckers and freight hauling by next year.

Uber announced it had acquired Otto, a 90-person start-up focused on developing self-driving truck technology that aims to upend the trucking and shipping industry.

Former employees of Google, Apple, Tesla, Cruise Automation, and others - 40 people in total - have formed a new San Francisco-based company called Otto with the goal of turning commercial trucks into self-driving freight haulers.