If in the United States and Europe the experimentation of vehicles self-driving heavy vehicles is going hand in hand with the introduction of rules that have so far allowed the circulation of roads of cooperative or partially autonomous vehicles, in particular China's development of this driving technology seems to be at a more advanced stage. advanced, as it is for electric vehicles. Inceptio Technology, a leading company in China in the development of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty vehicles, announced a increasing the use of its solutions and technologies from national cold chain logistics providers for achieve greater cost reduction and gains in terms of efficiency on long-haul routes.

In the middle of last year, the Chinese company celebrated the 40 million kilometres of experimental journeys and self-driving vehicles built without the occurrence of incidents and announced the adoption of a Own self-driving system by Shandong Deshun Cold Chain Logistics (Deshun Logistics), a company that, with a fleet of more than 100 trucks, provides logistics services for the chain between several provinces, including Shandong, Hebei and Inner Mongolia in northern China where it used three vehicles heavy 6x4 equipped with the Inceptio autonomous driving system.

Lianfu Yu, CEO of Deshun Logistics, pointed to the increase in safety resulting from the adoption of the driving system which, he specified, also has "a positive effect on the company's turnover represented by a reduction in premiums insurance companies'. Yu highlighted other forms of savings determined by autonomous driving: "In the past," he explained A journey of 1,000 kilometers required the presence of two drivers, but the Inceptio autonomous driving system allows us to operate on these routes with only one driver. It also allows us to to save hundreds of yuan per way, reducing the consumption of fuel of five litres per 100 kilometres. All things considered, the The annual cost of use of each truck is almost halved."

Ding, one of Deshun Logistics' fleet managers, also ensured that the system provides a drivers as the company is paying them a "For example, let's assume that for The round trip of 600 kilometers our gain would be 3,000 yuan. Previously, the amount would have been split between two drivers. Now, that 3,000 yuan goes to a single driver. In addition, the company saves about 400 yuan in fuel for the trip. The system reduces our fatigue and allows us to travel more distance every day and earn more. It's great!"

Not to dampen Yu and Ding's enthusiasm, but you can't Don't point out that all that glitters isn't gold. Observing, for example, that if previously it took two drivers for a journey of one thousand kilometres, with the new system self-driving, which - as Inceptio and Deshun assure Logistics - reduces the physical and mental effort of the driver, driver will be less stressed, but will certainly have to be replaced (hopefully) at the wheel of the such a long distance, unless you travel at a certain speed. Usually not allowed on all arteries road and motorway transport all over the world.

You can also be glad that the drivers of the company logistics enjoy - as guaranteed by Ding - an advantage economic impact resulting from the adoption of the self-driving system, although it is not clear whether it is limited to a part of the savings achieved by the company or is effectively a consequent double compensation to halving the number of drivers. It's going to be great, as he assures Ding, but, if that's the case, maybe it won't be when More operators will have self-driving vehicles, and half of them will be self-driving drivers who, in all likelihood, will return to receive A fee of 1,500 yuan for that 600-kilometer trip.