Waymo

While there are several sides to this, and there will most assuredly be major issues to overcome, a tectonic shift is coming.

Less than eight months after Minneapolis, Minn.-based global logistics services provider and freight forwarder C.H. Robinson and Mountain View, Calif.-based Waymo Via, the trucking and local delivery unit of autonomous driving technology company Waymo, announced a long-term strategic partnership focused on mutually exploring the practical application of autonomous driving technology in both logistics and supply chains, the companies recently heralded examples of their partnership in action on a 222-mile Texas-based “beer run” lane, from Dallas to Houston,...

The companies said that the objective of the partnership is to connect their respective technologies and deploy autonomous trucks at scale on the Uber Freight network, while meshing Waymo’s autonomous driving technology with Uber Freight’s network and marketplace technology.

C.H. Robinson and Waymo officials said that this partnership meshes the Waymo Driver, Waymo’s autonomous technology, with Navisphere, C.H. Robinson’s Navisphere, its connected logistics platform, which provides end-to-end visibility, consistent business processes, and strategy-driven business intelligence on a global basis.

Don’t look for completely autonomous vehicles on your local roadways in the next few months unless you live in the Phoenix area. But do expect this unprecedented corporate R&D project to impact all of our lives over the next few years