Early autonomous trucking history

Even though autonomous passenger vehicles have entered the mainstream in cities across the country, autonomous trucks still lag behind. But Humble Robotics thinks it has cracked the code with a new design that completely does away with the tractor-trailer model we see on the highway every day.

In this episode, Shayle speaks to Eyal Cohen, founder and CEO of Humble. The company built its electric trucks from the ground up. Fully cabless, they combine the tractor and trailer into a single platform designed to optimize energy efficiency, unit economics, and roadway safety.

Shayle and Eyal explore topics including:

• The differences between autonomous passenger and freight vehicles
• The challenge of transporting heavy payloads at high speeds
• Why Humble has shifted away from LiDar in favor of a camera-centric approach offered by visual language models (VLMs)
• The unit economics of electric and autonomous freight
• Why Humble is embracing a "hub-to-hub" model for its trucks
• The evolving regulatory landscape for autonomous trucking

Resources

• Catalyst: Volts crossover: Six big energy questions
• Latitude Media: Can the Tesla Semi finalize decarbonize trucking?
• Latitude Media: Rivian and EnergyHub are teaming up on managed charging
• The Green Blueprint: A billion-dollar play on electrified transport

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

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