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The trucking industry is plagued by driver shortages, higher vehicle prices, fuel price volatility, safety concerns, and performance limitations amid rapidly transforming freight handling, stocking, and distribution practices.

Autonomous driving technologies would help to address some of these challenges by providing a cost-effective and safe mode of freight transport. Major fleets and logistics operators have defined autonomy in their process value chain to reduce costs and ensure long-term market sustainability. Truck manufacturers and customers realize the opportunities that autonomous technology can bring to the trucking industry, but they are also skeptical of practical usability and implementation. Regulations in some US states allow on-road testing of vehicles that are limited to defined levels of autonomy.

Ripe with opportunities, the industry is witnessing the emergence of several start-ups that want to implement full-scale autonomous truck operation on North American roads. Many of these companies are developing end-to-end technology solutions guided by camera and lidar-based vision inputs that are processed through deep learning and artificial intelligence technologies to maneuver and navigate the vehicle automatically. Although autonomous technology is at a nascent stage, implementation in commercial vehicles is seen as more immediately plausible than in passenger vehicles. Start-ups are working on autonomous layers at various stages of the freight handling journey.