Every time I turn around, there is more news about “self-driving” or autonomous vehicles. I hope that there is effective communication and collaboration among all the players involved to bring these latest and greatest technologies safely to the road.

Self-driving trucking start-up Otto is poised to put its software in the hands of long-haul truckers by the end of this year for testing, its co-founders said on Thursday.

Otto, co-founded by Google car and map project veterans Anthony Levandowski and Lior Ron, will also begin testing five retrofitted Volvo trucks at Northern California’s autonomous vehicle testing grounds, GoMentum Station, in coming weeks.

By the end of the year, small owner-operators and larger commercial partners will begin using Otto’s self-driving kit, Levandowski told Reuters at the facility in Concord, north of San Francisco, adding the company has a target of “thousands” of testers by 2017.

Otto has not yet announced when the technology will be ready for sale. . .

Read more here: Start-Up Otto in Fast Lane to Test Self-Driving Trucking by Year’s End, Insurance Journal, Alexandria Sage, August 8, 2016