Lior Ron poses in front of an Otto truck Business Insider / Jillian D'Onfro Right this very second, at least one Otto truck is barreling down the highway with a driver sitting behind its wheel but touching absolutely nothing.

The truck is driving itself.

"We try to have our four trucks out 24/7," said Lior Ron, Otto's cofounder, with a grin. "We're moving as fast as we can."

The 6-month-old startup is sprinting toward what Ron describes as the not-so-distant future of self-driving semis, where existing trucks can install one of Otto's $30,000 kits to produce autonomous driving capabilities.

On the trip that's taking place now, two people ride in the truck: one behind the wheel and another studying what the truck's Lidar and software systems are "seeing." But ultimately, Otto envisions that trucks will only require one person, and that the "driver" will be able to take lunch breaks and naps in the cab while the truck fully steers itself down the highway, requiring him or her to take control only on regular roads.

Ron and his three cofounders, all former Google employees, believe self-driving trucks could be widespread in less than five years — much sooner than the fully autonomous consumer vehicles that their old employer is working on and with the potential for a similarly huge effect.

Ron flings out stats, rapid-fire style: Roughly 1% of all vehicles in the US are large trucks, but they're creating 28% of the road-based pollution. They drive 5.6% of all US miles, but they're at fault for nearly 9.5% of all driving fatalities.

"There's more and more demand for truck drivers to drive more with less time," Ron says. "We're living in an on-demand era where we all want to press a button and have something arrive as fast as possible. Well, there's a truck behind all of those products."

He argues that self-driving trucks would mean fewer sleep-deprived drivers and less environmental impact (since the trucks wouldn't be wasting fuel by accelerating and decelerating as much). Plus, if trucks could drive 24/7 (versus the 10 hours that a driver can legally go) that would mean more efficient deliveries, too.

To better explain his vision, Ron gave Business Insider one of the first peeks inside Otto's cavernous headquarters to see where the innovation is cracking. Check it out: