The Long, Bumpy Road To Deploying Driverless Trucks At Scale

Jan 13, 2025

Last week, Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA announced “a long-term strategic partnership to deploy driverless trucks at scale, powered by the next-generation NVIDIA DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chip (SoC). NVIDIA’s DRIVE Thor and DriveOS will be integrated into the Aurora Driver, an SAE L4 autonomous driving system that Continental plans to mass-manufacture in 2027.”

Based on surveys we’ve done with members of our Indago supply chain research community — who are all supply chain and logistics executives from manufacturing, retail, and distribution companies — very few companies are currently testing driverless trucks to ship or receive goods. “I believe we are still 10 years out before this technology is adopted and safe for all involved,” said one executive member in an August 2022 survey. “Our company would get involved once our carrier base has thoroughly tested the driverless capabilities and proven their risk to be zero.”

Here are some other comments submitted at the time:

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Mitigating Impact of Tariff War

Most of the Section 301 tariffs the United States levied on China imports in 2018/19 remain in place, and in May 2024 the Biden administration raised tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese goods, including semiconductors and electric vehicles. Regardless of who wins the presidential election, tariffs will play a role in U.S. trade policy in the next few years. Meanwhile, the EU is pushing ahead to implement a 45% tariff on Chinese electric vehiclestoo. In short, the risk for a global trade war, with tit-for-tat tariffs, is growing as we head into 2025. Is this a concern for your company as you develop your supply chain plans and strategies for 2025? What actions will you take (or have you taken) to mitigate the cost impact?

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