On April 15, Tucson will go public in the future. As the first share of self-driving freight, Tucson, which has not yet been commercialized, has received unprecedented attention.

So why is there a future for freight autopilot? What pain points have been solved?

And subdivided into the future of Tucson, what are the advantages of Tucson in the future?

This article will give some views on this.

The challenge of traditional truck freight operation has become increasingly prominent, self-driving freight is the solution?

First of all, this paper wants to establish a point of view that the US freight industry is facing an increasingly serious imbalance between supply and demand.

On the one hand, due to the development of e-commerce and the transport demand that arrives on the same day and the other day, the demand for freight capacity increases, on the other hand, the supply of freight capacity is insufficient because of insurance costs, shortage of drivers, security accidents and other reasons.

At the same time, there are a series of problems, such as low fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the background of the increasingly prominent challenge of freight operation, Tucson's futureFreight transportationIs autonomous driving the solution?

1. Trucking in the United States: the market size is as high as 800 billion US dollars, and 10% of the routes carry nearly 80% of the goods.

At present, the capacity of the global trucking market is US $4 trillion, of which the US trucking market is US $800 billion, and trade, transportation and warehousing account for 15% of US GDP, ranking third.

Moreover, truck traffic in the United States is concentrated on a few routes. Nearly 80% of trucking goods transported in the United States are transported through 10% of the trade corridors in the United States, of which the most valuable corridors connect the 100 largest metropolitan areas.

This means that Tucson's future autopilot technology can solve a large part of the problem.

2. The labor cost of traditional freight transportation is high, showing fragmentation, and there is a shortage of truck drivers.

Traditional transportation takes the form of fragmentation.The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that more than 500000 freight charterers operate more than 3.6 million Class 8 semitrailers in the United States. The vast majority of them are small transport companies, 95% operate less than 20 semi-trailer trucks, and more than 84% operate six or fewer semi-trailer trucks.

This less but more fragmentation leads to fierce competition in the trucking market. The result is overwinding, with the largest carriers having an average operating profit margin of less than 10 per cent and labour costs accounting for more than 40 per cent of truck freight per mile.

Labor cost accounts for the highest total transportation cost.As a result of fragmented operations, the operating cost of semi-trailer trucks per mile is 43%, an increase of 10% over 2012 and 79% higher than the second-largest fuel cost.

There is a shortage of truck drivers.The reason for the high cost is not only demand, but also supply.

There is a shortage of semi-trailer truck drivers. An analysis by the American trucking Association (ATA) found that the shortage of level 8 semitrailer drivers more than tripled from 2005 to 2018, with a shortfall of about 60,000 drivers, with a compound annual growth rate of about 9 per cent. And as it ages, the driver shortage will expand by 2.6 times, equivalent to a compound annual growth rate of about 10%.This will also push up labor costs.

3. Independent freight transport: from truck manufacturers to carriers and shippers, independent freight transport can benefit all parties

So the autopilot business, for all parties, can benefit.

Because, on the one hand, 94% of serious crashes are caused by human errors, the safety advantages of vehicle automation may promote the efforts of the private sector and regulators to gradually improve the level of automation, such as full driving L4 automatic operation.Level L4, which achieves full driving ability under certain conditions, may provide a safer solution.

On the other hand, autonomous driving may also solve the fundamental imbalance between supply and demand faced by the truck freight industry today. Freeing drivers from mileage trucking would save shippers, carriers and rail companies significant costs and enable them to reallocate scarce driver resources to the first and last miles of route transport.Ultimately improve efficiency and reduce costs.

To sum up, freight autopilot may be a good choice.

With a clear business and leading core technology, will Tucson's future model really hit the ground as scheduled?

If the above discussion solves the problem of autopilot, can it solve the problem of freight transportation? So the next thing to consider is, will Tucson's future model really land on schedule?

Tucson, founded in September 2015, currently has a self-driving fleet of 70 trucks. Its development vision is to focus on the research and development of L4 driverless trucks, commercial landing, and empower the logistics industry.。

Now its business model, according to the division of Anxin Research, can be simply summarized as follows:Three major products, two services, one core.

• One core refers to the autonomous freight network, which is called Autonomous Freight Network,AFN in English

In order to support AFN, a special L4 autonomous semitrailer with safety and reliability is being developed, which integrates the company's core technology, including the company's own software platform and sensor system.

• The two services are carrier's own capacity mode and TuSimple capacity mode.

Carrier's own capacity modelIt means that the shipping company buys self-driving trucks directly from OEM, which are built by OEM and Tucson.

By subscribing to the TuSimple path and paying a subscription fee per mile, users with their own capacity can integrate their own freight services into the existing supply chain, operate special L4 autonomous semitrailers, and obtain functions such as route planning that can be directly connected to users' existing facilities and the TuSimple Connect platform.

Charges:The technology order fee is $0.35 per mile, which is expected to save shippers $0.40 to $0.50 per mile, equivalent to about $95000 per truck per year.

TuSimple capacity modelIt means that users can also obtain a full set of independent freight capacity through TuSimple capacity mode.

In the future, Tucson will adopt a lightweight business model to finance L4 autonomous semi-trailers through third-party fleet owners and financing sources. In this mode, the company can directly provide terminal-to-terminal freight services for users, and can regulate operations and improve user experience.

Charges:Users pay to use their L4 automatic semitrailer trucks, which are expected to be 10-15% lower than the mileage rates charged by traditional trucking companies. If you take the current traditional US freight rate of $1.70 per mile as an example, reducing the freight rate by 15 per cent would save about $25000 per 100000 miles.

• Three kinds of products: special L4 semitrailer truck + TuSimple path + AFN terminal

Special L4 automatic semi-trailer.The company's plan is to ship the first L4 self-driving truck on the production line by 2024, in partnership with established truck manufacturers Navistar and Traton, which will be mass-produced and deployed on the company's autonomous freight network AFN in the future.

TuSimple path.The L4 automatic semitrailer truck is supported by the company's in-vehicle autopilot software, TuSimple Connect cloud-based automatic operation supervision system, automatic high-definition route map and emergency roadside rescue, thus providing end-to-end automatic freight capacity.

Users will pay Tucson future royalties per mile, use Tucson's future proprietary routes, and benefit from lower total freight.

AFN terminal.The scale of network solutions can be said to be critical if you are to gain a significant share of the trucking market.

While liberating drivers from semitrailers is valuable from a unit economy perspective, without a scalable and highly reliable terminal network connected to high-definition digital map routes, the solution is still not feasible for major shippers, carriers and railway companies.

Tucson's future terminal network consists of users' existing terminals and TuSimple operating terminals to maximize operational efficiency.

Through the analysis of the above layout, the implementation of Tucson's future model is feasible. And it depends on the multiple advantages of technology, team and ecology.

To sum up:

1. Focus on automatic semi-trailer truck freight:As a pioneer in new technologies and new areas, focus makes the company more likely to achieve a commercial landing than a company that has developed autonomous passenger cars.

2. Technological advantages:Tucson will have leading independent technology in the future. The company has more than 240 patents worldwide. Some of the key elements of the company's technology include 1000-meter sensing systems, multi-sensor fusion, predictive models and planning capabilities.

3. Partner's advantages:Tucson's future hardware partnership will enable it to focus mainly on the development of its own core autonomous software, while reaping the benefits of a light capital business model.

What are the differences between multiple companies in the field of self-driving trucks?

Finally, I would like to talk about Tucson's competitors in this field in the future. Or what is the difference between the model and its competitors?

1. Yanchu TechnologyThe business focuses on trunk logistics scenarios and independently develops L3 and L4 autopilot technologies. In April, 20, Chechu Technology completed the acceptance of the L3 heavy truck A sample car. On March 10, 21, Rancho Technology released the self-driving system Xuanyuan, which is the industry's first self-developed truck autopilot system directly for mass production and self-development.

two。 Zhijia Technology:Founded in Silicon Valley in the United States in 16 years, and has R & D centers in Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai and other places. The world's first mass-produced self-driving heavy truck J7 L3 was launched in 20 years and will be put on the market in 2021. NVIDIA DRIVE Orin ™(SoC) will be used in its next generation of mass production self-driving heavy truck products.

3. Pony Zhixing:16 was established at the end of the year, in China and the United States at the same time layout, landing autopilot technology. In 20 years, Xiaoma Zhihang set up the truck Division, began to further explore the commercialization of commercial vehicle self-driving, and obtained the first self-driving truck test license in Guangdong Province.

Summary

Tucson currently covers map routes in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and is mapping at more than 250 miles a week, with plans to achieve a roadmap for the entire United States by 2024.

Tucson did not confine himself to a self-driving truck solution provider in the future, but led the joint efforts of OEM, Tier 1, logistics enterprises, express companies and large commercial groups to set up a self-driving logistics network.The prospect is very broad.

However, we should also note that it is not really commercialized, and with the doubling of revenue, the net loss continues to rise. Between 2018 and 2020, Tucson's future revenue will be $9000, $710000 and $1.843 million, respectively. The net loss from 2018 to 2020 was $45.034 million, $84.883 million and $170 million, respectively.