Drive Wire for October 26, 2016: Uber’s Self-Driving Truck Makes Its First Delivery—50,000 Cans of Beer

Hey there. Will Sabel Courtney here for Drive Wire on October 26th, 2016.

Today on Drive Wire: Last week, a self-driving truck developed by Uber drove itself 120 miles across Colorado to deliver a load of Budweiser, marking the first official time a shipment was carried by an autonomous bug rig.

The self-driving trek was a joint effort between Anheuser-Busch, the state of Colorado, and Otto, a division of Uber that is developing autonomous semi-trucks. Otto was acquired by Uber earlier this year.

The payload of 51,744 cans of Bud was transported from Fort Collins, Colorado, to Colorado Springs. While a human driver was on board the truck to keep an eye on things, Otto says the person was required to do nothing for the entire journey.

Self-driving trucks that deliver beer? We’ll drink to that. (Don’t worry, it’s just coffee.)

That’s it for Drive Wire on October 26th, 2016. I’m Will Sabel Courtney; thanks for watching, and please check out The Drive for more on the big stories from the transportation world.