What’s New in Logistics Tech
Pissed off engineers, car accidents, and people getting fired. Wowza. What a week.
Uber brought on NASA engineer, Mark Moore, to work as the Director of Engineering at Uber Elevate. Moore actually pioneered the current interest in short-haul urban flight with a 2010 paper on the feasibility of helicopter-like urban vehicles. He accepted the role because Uber is taking the idea he had years ago and implementing it in a practical sense- turning a vision into something with actual market motivation.
An interesting piece on one of the major complications facing self-driving cars: Construction zones.
Brogan BamBrogan, the engineer/ co-founder of Hyperloop One who left amid a pretty insane legal battle last summer, has launched a competitor to Hyperloop, called Arrivo. Like Hyperloop One, Arrivo’s plan is to transport people and/ or cargo at near-supersonic speeds. BamBrogan plans to have all this up and running within 3 years, which is no small feat. Both Arrivo and Hyperloop face more challenges than the average startup. Both require a huge investment in infrastructure and an equally huge amount of trust from the general public who are deeply entrenched in current transport systems (airlines, cars, etc.). All this and they still have to make money… eek.
Not only will driverless cars completely upend infrastructure, human and cargo transport, and car ownership, it also promises to transform the auto insurance industry. What happens when a car wrecks in autopilot? Who’s paying for that?
UK is on top of this issue. The Department for Transport will start implementing two-in-one insurance products for driverless vehicles. Under these new plans, as soon as the driver puts the car in driverless mode, full control and responsibility is handed over to the car. Insurance companies will pay for any damages from driverless crashes, and then they will likely recover costs from the car’s manufacturer.
UPS is killing it in our update this week. A recent report shows that since 2005, UPS has reduced travel distance by 45.8 million miles with 1100 fewer trucks on the road because of an algorithm that prevents drivers from taking left turns. That’s right. Literally… They only turn right.
Since the decision to eliminate left turns, UPS has saved tens of millions of dollars in fuel costs (and helped the environment along the way, which is cool if you’re into that sort of thing). Why does this work? Because in the US and other right side of the road countries, right turns are free while a left turn costs you time and fuel consumption as you idle and wait for a green light.
UPS has committed to implementing solar energy systems into at least 8 more US facilities by the end of the year. This will involve an $18 million investment, which will go towards 26,000 solar panels, and will result in a five-fold increase from its current solar capacity. This means that they will reduce carbon emissions by 8,200 metric tons per year. This isn’t all altruism, though. The increased use of solar energy will also mean that UPS will own a large portion of its long-term power supply- giving the company more flexibility and control.
In “we’re all going to lose our jobs and be poor and have nothing to do with our lives” news, Changying Precision Technology Company has replaced 590 human workers (that’s 90% of its workforce) with robots. Now, only 60 workers at the company have human faces and other human parts (that was an awkward way to say that. I apologize.) Since the shift to mostly-automated, productivity has increased 250% and defects have gone down from 25% to 5%. The General Manager Luo Weiquiang has suggested that they will cut down on human employees even further because of how well the robots have performed.
See you next week for more logistics tech news!
