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Trucks without drivers on roads - 20th January 2023

Scania's a company in Sweden. It makes trucks. Scania trucks are everywhere on the world's roads. Scania's now testing them without a driver. The trucks can drive themselves. For now, there is a driver. But he's not driving.

The truck looks normal. But it has cameras and sensors, or 'lidars', on the roof. These, with the GPS, control the truck. Göran Fjällid's a Scania engineer.

Göran Fjällid: "This was a normal truck but they have put a lot of sensors in the truck. This was a lidar. It was a light and the second lidar and we have the third lidar in the front."

Göran Fjällid: "And we have the other sensor in the roof. It was 10 cameras and one lidar, long distance lidar, and we have GPS and some other sensors."

Scania's control centre can help with problems. The driver can start driving the truck too.

Lots of companies have the same idea about driverless trucks. It's a race. And it's important. There aren't enough truck drivers in the world. In 2021, they couldn't find 2.6 million drivers. For Scania's Peter Hafmar, driverless trucks can help. They're safe and use less energy.

Peter Hafmar: "Then we’ll also have safety. The computer and the sensor sets are very safe so they don't get distracted with check their phones or something like that. And also they have the environmental aspect that, well we don't have to focus on drivers’ hours. We can drive all 24/7 and we can reduce the speed, which then reduce the energy consumption, so we don't have to charge the vehicle."

There's still lots of work to do. One problem is the laws in different countries. But in the early 2030s, we'll have driverless trucks on our roads.