Driverless Truck Reaches 99% Readiness; Remaining 1% Is Finding a Parking Spot After 6 p.m.

An autonomous truck developer announced this week that its driverless rig is now 99% ready for long-haul service, with only one small problem left to solve: parking.

"It can see through fog. It can predict a minivan cutting across three lanes for an exit it already missed," said a project engineer who asked not to be named because she has been awake since the truck tried to find a spot on Tuesday. "But after 6 p.m., it just drives in circles around a travel centre making a sound like a dial-up modem."

The 1%

According to the company's internal readiness chart, the final percentage point breaks down as follows:

• 0.4%: Locating any open spot after dinner.
• 0.3%: Deciding whether the end of an on-ramp counts as a spot.
• 0.2%: Backing into a gap between two trucks parked diagonally by people who "were only going to be ten minutes."
• 0.1%: Understanding why the 14 open spaces are all reserved.

Human drivers unsurprised

Veteran drivers said they were not surprised the machine had stalled at the exact point where they have been stuck since 1987.

"Welcome to the club, buddy," said one driver, sitting in the truck he had parked on a shoulder in what he described as a "creative but technically legal" location. "We figured out every other part of the job decades ago. The parking was never solved. We just got good at suffering."

Engineers try everything

Testers said the truck has run more than 4 million simulated miles. In 3.9 million of those, it ended the night idling behind a closed weigh station.

The team briefly tried teaching the system to "just find a Walmart." The truck located one, parked politely across 22 car spaces, and was ticketed within nine minutes.

Next steps

The company says it remains on track to launch. It has added a new safety feature: if no parking is found by 9 p.m., the truck will automatically pull onto the shoulder, turn on its flashers and stare into the dark like everyone else.