California-based TuSimple hopes its automated trucking routes will have spread across all of the USA by 2024 and extend into Europe in 2025 and 2026, according to its chief product officer Chuck Price speaking at last week’s Move conference in London.

The company has already completed more than 250,000km of automated freight for UPS during the two years it has been working with the logistics company, and done over 800,000km total with all its partners.

“We are working with over 20 other freight partners and have developed a system that can scale to all of the USA by 2024 and extend to Europe in 2025 and 2026,” said Price.

He said UPS had reported fuel savings of around 13% since it started working with TuSimple.

“This is no longer a science project,” said Price. “It is real and it is here today.”

The company was founded in 2015 and is based in San Diego with offices in Arizona, Sweden and Beijing. It has been working with OEMs such as Navistar and Scania to build an automated freight network that is really a network of networks. The company went public in April this year.

Its technology is specifically designed for lorries and can achieve level-four automated driving. In 2019, it started working with UPS on a route from Phoenix to Tucson.

“Due to the success of that initial route, we are expanding nationally,” said Price. “We carry freight for UPS every day.”

The initial route from Phoenix has been extended to three cities in Texas and more recently to Orlando in Florida. It is now looking at doing the initial Tucson route without a safety driver after trials on a test track.