Navistar CEO: Tech For Autonomous Semi Trucks On Highways To Arrive “This Side Of 2025”

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The tech that would allow for fully autonomous semi truck travel in limited circumstances, such as on highways, should arrive on “this side of 2025” — though, commercial adoption may have to wait, depending upon regulatory actions — according to the CEO of truck manufacturer Navistar International.

Interestingly, though, the CEO also expects that big changes are still coming by around 2020 — when tech allowing for reduced driver input should begin arriving.

“I have a lot of confidence in where the technology is headed,” commented Navistar CEO Troy Clarke, in an interview with Reuters. “I think you’ll see this come in waves. The next wave will be around the 2020 timeframe.”

That comment is a reference to integrated lane-keeping and collision-avoidance systems, amongst other things, it should be realized.

Interestingly, the Navistar CEO also made comments about the electrification of trucks

Reuters provides more: “Battery costs for large electric vehicles could reach a cost-competitive level with diesel engines around the end of this decade, he added. Early applications will focus on vehicles with predictable routes of less than 200 miles per day that can recharge overnight at a depot, such as school buses.”

“We think that is on the horizon … and we are dedicating energy and resources into that space,” he stated. “I‘m not really making product announcements but I want to lead people to understand there are product announcements to be made in the near future.”

Presumably, that’s a somewhat veiled reference to all of the PR that Tesla’s been generating in recent months regarding its soon-to-be-revealed electric semi truck prototype. Navistar execs certainly wouldn’t want customers to think that they were at risk of being left behind, would they?


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James Ayre

James Ayre's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy.

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