400-Ton Driverless Trucks Headed to Alberta Oil Fields
Canada’s largest oil-company said it will be purchasing driverless trucks, each weighing 400 tons, to work the Alberta oil fields, the Calgary Herald reported.
Suncor Energy signed a five-year deal with Japanese manufacturer Komatsu for 175 “autonomous-ready” heavy haulers capable of operating without a driver to be used at its mining operations, the paper reported.
The move comes as oil prices have been plummeting and oil companies are looking to cut costs and boost productivity, according to the paper. Suncor already has laid off 1,000 people this year.
PHOTO GALLERY: Freightliner's Self-Driving Truck
The announcement has stoked fears of significant job losses for the company’s 1,000 heavy-haul operators.
“It’s very concerning to us as to what the future may hold,” Ken Smith, president of Unifor Local 707A, representing 3,300 Suncor employees, told the Herald.
Suncor's chief financial officer, Alister Cowan, told investors the company is working to replace its fleet of heavy haulers with automated trucks “by the end of the decade.”
“That will take 800 people off our site, Cowan said. “At an average [salary] of $200,000 per person, you can see the savings we’re going to get from an operations perspective.
PHOTO GALLERY: Peterbilt's Self-Driving Prototype
Autonomous truck technology is being pushed by companies such as Daimler, which recently introduced a self-driving truck, and the manufacturer is pushing for governments to speed approval of the technology.
Peterbilt Motors Co. also has demonstrated a self-driving prototype Class 8 truck in which cameras replace mirrors and infrared capability lights up a deer or a person on a dark night.
