It was only earlier in the month when Google"s self-driving vehicle division, Waymo, confirmed that it was working on autonomous trucks. While things have been fairly quiet on that front for the past couple of weeks, it appears that new images have surfaced that show off the alleged vehicle.
The supplied images provided to Jalopnik, show off, what look to be Peterbilt"s Model 579. The 579 offers a great platform with its aerodynamic shell, spacious cab, and is fairly efficient when it comes to fuel consumption. Although the truck can be configured with a manual transmission, the site states that this is most likely an automatic model.
As we can see from the pictures, the vehicle does have quite an array of sensors that are attached to the roof, with Jalopnik pointing out the presence of a LIDAR dome and four ultrasonic sensors. There is also the additional radar that is mounted just above the front license plate. While this is quite an extensive setup, there is always the possibility that there are more sensors hidden about, but this cannot be verified from the photos.
Google faces competition from Uber and Tesla as they have both announced their intention to enter the autonomous truck market. It remains to be seen when these vehicles will make it to the roads.
Source: Jalopnik