Kodiak Demonstrates How Their Robo-Trucks Handle Tire Blowouts

Palo Alto-based startup Kodiak is developing self-driving trucks and demonstrated how the vehicle handles a tire blowout. These are a recurring event that drivers struggle to control, especially when tires on the steering axle blow out.

This is exactly what Kodiak wanted to show: how does the computer handle such a situation? On a test track in Texas, an obstacle caused the tire to burst in a controlled manner. The truck’s autonomous control system not only kept the vehicle within the lane, but made the vehicle brake in a controlled manner and turned on the warning lights. Here is the video:

UPDATE: How important this function and stabilization is can be seen in the following two videos published by the Wham Baam Teslacam YouTube channel. There you can see trucks that have a tire blowout on the steering axle and change uncontrolled over several lanes. Here at minute 9:45:

And here at minute 1:00:

This article was also published in German.