EDITORIAL: Autonomous trucking hits rocky road

Within a four-week stretch - from roughly mid-February to mid-March - a steady stream of autonomous-trucking news hit. A quick summary: As several startups in the autonomous-truck development space struggle financially, established OEMs keep trucking with acquisitions and partnerships to bolster their automated-driving capabilities.

On March 3, the cofounder and CEO of Embark Trucks, which was founded in 2016, sent an email to all its employees announcing the company's likely imminent closure. “The last nine months have been tough for the autonomous trucking industry, and for Embark - the capital markets have turned their backs on pre-revenue companies, just as slipping manufacturer timelines have delayed the prospect of scaled commercial deployment,” Alex Rodrigues wrote.