Texas technology firm Aurora made headlines earlier this month by launching the first fully autonomous freight service in the US – but those celebrations may have been premature. According to the company’s CEO, human operators are back in the saddle.
In a blog post written by Aurora CEO, Chris Urmson, the company said the decision to put a human operator back behind the wheel of its tech-boosted Peterbilt Class 8 semi trucks was a result of pressure from the truck manufacturer’s parent company PACCAR. PACCAR apparently wanted a human in place, “because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform.”
In Urmson’s own words:…