Autonomous Trucking's Long Haul 🚚

June 16, 2021

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Last week, we discussed the private companies bringing supply chain management into a new era of precision, automation, and efficiency. Today, we look at several companies vying to be an extension of that future, delivering goods far & wide with the help of premium technology in the form of self-driving cargo fleets.

If you’re disappointed that 2021 still hasn't seen flying cars and holographic FaceTimes, just look to the journey of self-driving cars as an example of the rocky path towards revolutionary technology. The industry has spent upwards of $24BN since 2015 with no real revenue in sight. The goals of both driverless passenger vehicles and cargo fleets are primarily rooted in safety, envisioning a future in which highway and road deaths are a thing of the past. That vision, along with a promise of increased efficiency and profits for moving goods (including 24-hour driving), is enough to keep investors financing the trials and errors. Over the last year, $8.5BN was invested in the market, including a $1.35BN IPO for TuSimple’s autonomous semi-trucks.

3 Private Autonomous Transport Companies:

🚚 Embark is in private talks to raise capital through a SPAC merger. The company recently expanded its headquarters in San Francisco while maintaining it has a lower burn rate than its competitors due to its modest workforce of 140 employees.

🚚 Locomation is also considering a SPAC merger. In the debate regarding what automation means for drivers, Locomation offers a unique solution, in which two semis travel together: a lead truck, driven by a human, and a trailing truck, autonomously driven while the second driver rests. The company’s first commercial product should be available by late 2022.

🚚 Aurora was once the autonomous car unit of Uber (who has since backed out of the industry) and is led by a former Google engineer from Google's automated car project. The company has roughly 1,600 employees, a $10BN valuation, and a path to SPAC with Reid Hoffman.