Driverless semi reaches milestone in test, startup Plus says
A Silicon Valley startup says the global race to develop fully autonomous trucks reached a milestone when a semi used its technology to navigate traffic on a Chinese highway with no driver, even as a safety backup.
The startup, called Plus, said the trial took place on the newly built Wufengshan highway in the Yangtze delta in late June. No human safety drivers were present in the truck and no remote controller was used. Other self-driving truck startups have reached a similar degree of automation — called Level 4, meaning a vehicle can drive itself under certain conditions — but those tests still included drivers or other human oversight.