Plus.ai

Shoppers in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, may like to know that the next stick of butter they buy may have come off a self-driving semi truck. Plus.ai announced on Tuesday that the startup completed a cross-country trip from Tulare, California, to Pennsylvania to deliver a truckload of Land O'Lakes butter.

According to the announcement, the trip took fewer than three days and accounted for the first time a Level 4 self-driving system handled a commercial freight trip. The cherry atop the achievement was the fact this truck carried perishable goods.

Plus.ai's suite of technology is called SLAM, a fun acronym for multimodal sensor fusion, deep learning visual algorithms, and simultaneous location and mapping. With this system, the semi handled 2,800 miles of driving "primarily" in autonomous mode. The startup told Roadshow there were zero disengagements for the autonomous system and the only time the human driver took over was for "federally mandated breaks and refueling."

It's a mighty achievement noting the things the technology needed to handle. The truck operated during the day and at night, and was unfazed by elevation changes and road construction. Rain and snow was also tossed into the mix -- inclement weather remains an area self-driving cars are somewhat unproven.

Many companies are itching to find efficiency gains in shipping goods autonomously. Without a driver, there's no need to stop a shipment for rest, bathroom breaks or food. The flip side of what the technology will mean for truck drivers is far less clear.