Autonomous Vehicles

In this article, we'll explore 10 trends that are reshaping the heavy equipment landscape going into 2024 to help you stay ahead of the curve.

This month Tesla revealed the world’s first-ever electric semi truck in a direct challenge to diesel semi trucks everywhere. While addressing an excited crowd at a Tesla facility in Hawthorne, California, CEO Elon Musk promised to revolutionize the hauling industry with a better, cleaner design – along with many other large claims. Companies like Walmart and the Canadian grocery chain Loblaws have already shown interest by placing small test fleet orders, but will Tesla’s energy-efficient semis really be able to outperform diesel semi trucks upon its promised 2019 release date?

Liebherr Mining Equipment Newport News Co. will exhibit its new autonomous haulage solution this week in Cologne, Germany, at the Autonomous Industrial Vehicle Technology Symposium. Liebherr plans to begin field trials of a pre-series at a customer site in 2019.

Work zones along the highway are dangerous places and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has unveiled a work zone vehicle designed to take safety one step further for roadway maintenance crews. The Autonomous Impact Protection Vehicle (AIPV) will help improve work zone safety by removing the driver from a truck that is actually designed to be hit. The Impact Protection Vehicle is normally positioned behind road construction crews in order to protect workers from the public.

According to a report out of Reuters on Thursday, Tesla's first semi truck to market will most likely be a day cab and capable of traveling between 200 to 300 miles per charge. The source of speculation is Scott Perry, the chief technology officer at Miami-based fleet operator Ryder System Inc., who said he met with Tesla officials earlier this year to discuss the technology.

Farming is often portrayed as a relatively low tech industry, but new agricultural innovations are prompting what many feel is a new era of high tech farming where human labor is reduced to a minimum in favor of automated robotic machinery. Leading industry experts believe automated bots could be poised at the forefront of a high tech farming revolution, and as agricultural equipment manufacturers race to research the best fully-automated farmer tools, many farmers are left wondering exactly how new agricultural technology with robots will change the way they farm.

If you've never heard of Embark before, you're not alone. Rest assured though, it won't be the last. Embark is looking to revolutionize commercial trucking by developing self-driving technology. Embark is now unveiling their self-driving commercial truck technology for the first time to the public. The company—which gained approval by the State of Nevada earlier this year to begin testing its truck on public roads—has created a technology that allows trucks to drive from exit to exit on the freeway without any human input.