Say hello to Uber Freight. Last summer, good old Uber acquired the company Otto, which planned to bring self-driving trucks to the hauling market. The concept tested reasonably well, delivering mega loads of beer and Christmas trees to San Francisco. Now, since the buy up, it looks like Uber is pivoting that branch away from just autonomous and towards their traditional product: decentralized movement. Drivers can sign up to deliver long distance, users can sign up to avoid traditional contracts with shipping companies. Sounds legit right?
While this seems like a bootleg industry nightmare to me, the ability to monitor the behavior of human drivers and their use networks will help further development of the Otto autonomous line. This is expected to depress some shipping costs, but does leave plenty of room for the beloved surge pricing. While multiple other tech brands have shown interest in the shipping world, this is the boldest move ahead yet.
The details are still gray but given the arrival of the new Uber Freight website, they should be delivered pretty soon.
http://www.core77.com/posts/59351/Uber-Trucking-Is-Here