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Otto bringing self-driving technology to trucks

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CIOL Writers
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We have been discussing the pros and cons of self driving cars in the past few months. Including the Indian versions of it and the Google self driving car crashes. But, watch out for a new startup “Otto” which wants to “rethink” the commercial trucking industry. Again a brain child of former Googlers Anthony Levandowski, Lior Ron, Don Burnette, and Claire Delaunay Otto plans to focus on automated technology that can be fitted into trucks that are on the road now.

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It is a known fact now that self-driving cars are very much a part of the future of tech. Everyone from Google, Uber, Apple and plenty of other top names are now working to develop autonomous vehicles. That’s where Otto enters with their expertise in trucks and it is aiming to shape the future

Otto’s founders revealed in a Medium post that trucks account for an oversized slice of pollution in the U.S. Hence, it focuses on technology that can be fitted into trucks that are on the road now. Their immediate goal is assistance and not eradicating drivers by making them obsolete. They have a lot of things and innovations at hand but, among many things, they aim to let drivers safely take a sleep break while leaving their truck driving autonomously.

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They started out with tools to help truck drivers perform their job with increased safety, but now it is working on technology that, in time, can automate parts of the drive on highways.

It will be exciting to see how others in the autonomous space react to Otto’s emergence. We area already aware of the Apple’s recruitment of “hundreds” of people working on its secretive car project. Levandowski and Lior wrote on medium, “we intend to enhance the capabilities of the Otto truck, collect safety data to demonstrate its benefits, and bring this technology to every corner of the U.S. highway system.”

However, their intent looks different than the rest of the industry, unlike others, which are designing new vehicles that drive autonomously, it has already completed one public highway demo of its system, and it is hatching grander plans beyond that.

Otto’s a team of 40 which is a mix of former Googlers, Tesla, HERE, Apple, Cruise, and various automobile companies.

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