Truck Safety Out of the Box from Autonobox

The premise is promising. Develop and market a plug-and-play, forward-avoidance braking system for the heavy vehicle market that can be installed quickly, upgraded regularly, and even transferred from vehicle to vehicle if necessary.

The Autonobox System essentially is a second braking system for heavy-duty vehicles that addresses the long-standing problem of brakes that overheat after intense use like a panic-stop or sustained use while going downhill.

This overheating, or brake fade, can affect a brake’s performance for the next few hours, while also leading to long-term degradation of the brake’s capability.

The Autonobox is from Soterea, led by Eva Lerner-Lam and Alain L. Kornhauser who bring a combined 80 years in the transportation industry with a background in academia, product development and testing.

Lerner-Lam is president and CEO, and Kornhauser is chairman and CTO, of Cranbury, N.J.-based Soterea, pronounced So-Tear-E-ah. The firm is named after Soteria, the Greek goddess of safety.

Kornhauser is a Princeton professor who leads the university’s Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering Team (PAVE). Lerner-Lam is a member of the Institute of Traffic Engineers, and was formerly on Princeton’s board of trustees.

HEAVY-VEHICLE SAFETY

Autonobox is still in a test phase though it received in March a patent-pending designation from the feds. Here’s a promotional video.

The Autonobox is an after-market safety product for public and private fleet operators of such vehicles as big-rig trucks, ambulances, urban and highway buses, delivery vans used by mail and package carrier firms and agencies, military vehicles, armored cars, and special-needs vans.

Soterea and its 30-or-so employees are marketing its product in the U.S. and China, where there is a large push on modernizing the on-road shipping business. Lerner-Lam is a first generation daughter of Chinese immigrants.

Lerner-Lam is open and excited about Soterea though there are some facts she is holding close to her vest.

She tells a harrowing story of nearly being killed about a decade ago when her car was hit by a big rig on the New Jersey Turnpike. This accident, and the death of good friend in a crash with a truck, led to her focus on eliminating truck accidents.

For now, though, Lerner-Lam declines to name specific investors, test partners or clients, pricing, or the specific launch date for the Autonobox System.

MAJOR INVESTORS

Still, she will say that Soterea investors include well-known international insurance companies along with finance firms that lend to fleets that purchase heavy-duty vehicles. And she pledges that Autonobox will launch in 2015 and be available next year.

The big money firms want to see forward-braking technology adopted because their bottom line is impacted when a large vehicle gets in an accident, says Lerner-Lam.

“If there’s no collision, who gains? Insurance companies have the most to gain,” she explains.

Eva Lerner-Lam

Similarly, finance companies believe Autonobox will reduce accidents, and thus reduce their loss on a damaged truck, says Lerner-Lam.

“They say, ‘We will finance this (Autonobox) equipment because we will save on the collateral of our loan for a $200,000 truck. We want to add (this) technology,’” she says.

Lerner-Lam and Kornhauser originally launched Soterea a few years ago with plans to produce autonomous products for the passenger vehicle market. That got sidetracked as research showed a need by large vehicles for greater stopping power, said Lerner-Lam.

Around the same time, regulations were getting tougher for trucks. In 2011, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set tougher stopping standards for three-axle tractors with a gross vehicle weight over 59,600 pounds, requiring these big trucks traveling at 60 mph come to a stop within 250 feet, compared with the previous 355 feet.

Lerner-Lam said their research also showed that consumer-vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles had fundamentally different needs when it came to autonomous technology.

Much of the consumer market is about distracted driving and helping the driver stay safe despite cell phones, videos, yelling kids, and pothole-riddled roads.

In contrast, the operator of a heavy vehicle is intensely focused on the road and is trying her best to avoid hitting the passenger vehicle, says Lerner-Lam.

“Rear-end collisions are the number one headache for heavy-duty fleets,” says Lerner-Lam. “They tell us, ‘Our drivers don’t fall asleep. Our drivers are scared stiff they will run into a van and kill a mom and her kids.’”

The human cost of an accident with a heavy-duty vehicle can be death and injury. But even less serious accidents for heavy-duty operators drive up expenses related to insurance, repairs, court costs, vehicle purchases, loss of driver services, and more.

These market facts led Soterea to switch gears and specialize in autonomous technology for heavy-duty vehicles, says Lerner-Lam.

Photo by RaymondClarkeimages.