What Is the Lowest-Cost Regional Freight Format?

Humble expects to complete testing and see the loading dock-to-loading dock truck transport 40-foot shipping containers in a customer pilot within a year. (Humble)

Intermodal is typically the lowest-cost longhaul freight transportation format. The lowest-cost format for moving freight over shorter distances?

Many are betting on autonomous configurations of legacy tractors, but for Humble Robotics CEO Eyal Cohen, it involves a battery-electric, cabless Class 8 autonomous vehicle.

Cohen, a former Apple, Otto, Uber and Waabi executive, took his vision for a platform capable of transporting a dockside shipping container to a customer from idea to prototype in six months.

San Francisco-based Humble expects to complete testing and see the loading dock-to-loading dock truck transport 40-foot shipping containers in a customer pilot within the next 12 months.

The vehicle design would then be adapted for 53-foot dry or refrigerated van trailers, Cohen told Transport Topics.

“It’s an interesting question of ‘How do you rethink this but how do you also plug into a well-oiled machine?’ ” Cohen said in an interview, referencing the freight industry of the 21st century.

“When we were working on this project, the goal was ‘How do we get the lowest cost of moving freight?’ ” he added.

The vehicle is driven by vision-language-action models. The design allows for 360-degree coverage of its surroundings with camera, lidar and radar.

Those systems guide a battery-electric skateboard or sled platform with a front shield installed for aerodynamics. Containers can then be loaded and secured through a twist-lock interface.

Cohen said the platforms would be built in the United States and that he would look for a U.S. battery supplier as development progresses.

Humble has raised $24 million in seed funding so far, led by Eclipse Ventures with participation by Energy Impact Partners and others. Part of Eclipse’s focus is re-industrialization, Cohen noted.

The funding will support continued development of vehicles, expand Humble’s autonomy stack, launch initial pilot deployments and enable early manufacturing as it works toward deployment on public roads.

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Cohen 

Testing will be substantially different compared with Cohen’s time at Otto and then Uber, with a great deal more of the work comprising simulations and the use of artificial intelligence versus time on the road due to advances in computing power.

“We learned that it is a very bad method for two reasons. One, there’s a lot of miles driven where nothing happens, especially when you’re driving on highways. And two, you know, it is more efficient just to test the simulation,” Cohen said.

“Often what we do here is we go map the roads that we’re excited about. We build a simulated world of that freight link, and then we go driving it over and over again,” the executive added.

Humble expects to scale up quickly while making sure a safe vehicle enters the freight industry and that carriers and shippers — particularly those with an appetite for introducing autonomous vehicles to their operations and supply chains — see the benefits.

“It’s a question of how to make sure that what we’re building works and works for the industry,” he said.