 When you're watching two guys talk about the history of trucking in America projected onto the massive Hoover Dam in the middle of the night, you kind of wonder what you're doing with your life. But when you realize they're revealing the world's first road-ready self-driving truck, things make a little bit more sense. You might think that it's done by plane, or you may wish it were done by drones, but a lot of the goods in this country are still delivered by trucks. The problem is that big rigs are dangerous. They kill 4,000 people a year in nearly half a million crashes. Driver fatigue is a leading cause of these accidents, but it's a problem that Daimler has a pretty revolutionary solution for. The company basically took an existing version of one of its Freightliner trucks and installed what's called the Highway Pilot System. It's the same thing that powers the Mercedes Future truck that we saw debut last year. And the technology that guides it is actually pretty simple. Just radar and cameras. Once the system becomes active, then it's fully autonomous, and it's steering, braking, and accelerating or decelerating as necessary to maintain control. We have two cameras that are mounted up into the windshield, and they use the white lines to determine the truck's position in the lane. Of course, if you don't have the white lines, you can still run in the normal ACC cruise control mode, and you can still run the truck manually. It's still safe to run it manually. Then the truck will let you know when it doesn't see the white lines and when you're supposed to take over. That's actually a really important point. If the painted lines on a road aren't in good shape, the truck's autopilot just won't work. You have to make sure that there aren't objects in the way. You have to make sure that the roads are actually still well built out. It'll tell you when those things might be interrupting your drive, but if the white lines aren't painted well on that road, the cameras aren't going to be able to pick it up and it's going to tell you to take back over. Once the driver is warned to take control, there's a countdown visual and audible to indicate that he has a specified amount of time to take over the wheel. Basically the system goes from active to completely inactive and unavailable. Daimler gave us a ride in the truck on the public highways outside of Las Vegas. The experience was actually pretty normal. There were a few instances where the driver had to take control, like getting on and off the highways or getting around construction vehicles, but for the most part the drive was pretty autonomous. The only thing that was weird about it was you could feel the truck drifting from side to side as it kept itself in the lane. That made me a little bit motion sick, but I'd imagine a truck driver wouldn't have that problem. I mean I've never been in a big rig before, but this is the only moment where you really felt a little blip of fear is just when the gear shift changed and that's just because that's the most noticeable thing that happened without you doing anything. The system is very integrated so that it's making choices on what gear to be in and what the optimal speed is and all of that. So the benefits of this system, there's three that we're focusing on. One in the area of safety, improves safety chances with the integration of the camera, the radar, the steering system. The other being the connectivity aspect, allow the driver to connect to either work or home based type systems with tablets. And then finally efficiency, the chances for optimization of acceleration deceleration as it impacts the driver and also the vehicle. That efficiency translates into better fuel mileage and reduced emissions, which are more reasons for Daimler to keep testing this technology in the coming years. As we go forward, there's a higher expectation for people and drivers and fleet owners to be more connected to their vehicles. So in turn, offering that to them also allows additional efficiency potentials. All of this is great and a future where our highways are full of automated vehicles, big and small, can only mean we're all going to be safer. But only two of these trucks are licensed to run on public roads right now and many other states won't allow them. So it's going to be a long time before robot trucks take over the highway.
 When you're watching two guys talk about the history of trucking in America projected
 onto the massive Hoover Dam in the middle of the night, you kind of wonder what you're
 doing with your life.
 But when you realize they're revealing the world's first road-ready self-driving truck,
 things make a little bit more sense.
 You might think that it's done by plane, or you may wish it were done by drones, but
 a lot of the goods in this country are still delivered by trucks.
 The problem is that big rigs are dangerous.
 They kill 4,000 people a year in nearly half a million crashes.
 Driver fatigue is a leading cause of these accidents, but it's a problem that Daimler
 has a pretty revolutionary solution for.
 The company basically took an existing version of one of its Freightliner trucks and installed
 what's called the Highway Pilot System.
 It's the same thing that powers the Mercedes Future truck that we saw debut last year.
 And the technology that guides it is actually pretty simple.
 Just radar and cameras.
 Once the system becomes active, then it's fully autonomous, and it's steering, braking,
 and accelerating or decelerating as necessary to maintain control.
 We have two cameras that are mounted up into the windshield, and they use the white lines
 to determine the truck's position in the lane.
 Of course, if you don't have the white lines, you can still run in the normal ACC cruise
 control mode, and you can still run the truck manually.
 It's still safe to run it manually.
 Then the truck will let you know when it doesn't see the white lines and when you're supposed
 to take over.
 That's actually a really important point.
 If the painted lines on a road aren't in good shape, the truck's autopilot just won't work.
 You have to make sure that there aren't objects in the way.
 You have to make sure that the roads are actually still well built out.
 It'll tell you when those things might be interrupting your drive, but if the white
 lines aren't painted well on that road, the cameras aren't going to be able to pick it
 up and it's going to tell you to take back over.
 Once the driver is warned to take control, there's a countdown visual and audible to
 indicate that he has a specified amount of time to take over the wheel.
 Basically the system goes from active to completely inactive and unavailable.
 Daimler gave us a ride in the truck on the public highways outside of Las Vegas.
 The experience was actually pretty normal.
 There were a few instances where the driver had to take control, like getting on and off
 the highways or getting around construction vehicles, but for the most part the drive
 was pretty autonomous.
 The only thing that was weird about it was you could feel the truck drifting from side
 to side as it kept itself in the lane.
 That made me a little bit motion sick, but I'd imagine a truck driver wouldn't have
 that problem.
 I mean I've never been in a big rig before, but this is the only moment where you really
 felt a little blip of fear is just when the gear shift changed and that's just because
 that's the most noticeable thing that happened without you doing anything.
 The system is very integrated so that it's making choices on what gear to be in and what
 the optimal speed is and all of that.
 So the benefits of this system, there's three that we're focusing on.
 One in the area of safety, improves safety chances with the integration of the camera,
 the radar, the steering system.
 The other being the connectivity aspect, allow the driver to connect to either work or home
 based type systems with tablets.
 And then finally efficiency, the chances for optimization of acceleration deceleration
 as it impacts the driver and also the vehicle.
 That efficiency translates into better fuel mileage and reduced emissions, which are more
 reasons for Daimler to keep testing this technology in the coming years.
 As we go forward, there's a higher expectation for people and drivers and fleet owners to
 be more connected to their vehicles.
 So in turn, offering that to them also allows additional efficiency potentials.
 All of this is great and a future where our highways are full of automated vehicles, big
 and small, can only mean we're all going to be safer.
 But only two of these trucks are licensed to run on public roads right now and many
 other states won't allow them.
 So it's going to be a long time before robot trucks take over the highway.