What do you get when a couple dozen former Google, Apple, and Tesla employees get together? A startup called Otto -- quite possibly the most disruptive tech since the Internet.

Until this week, when Backchannel published the first report about the company, Otto was a so-called "stealth startup."

Led by 15 former Google engineers, including some behind Google's self-driving car and maps projects, the startup's approximately 40 employees have been working in secrecy on a different (and bigger) kind of self-driving technology.

On late Monday night, Otto unveiled itself and its mission: To replace the country's fleet of (human-piloted) big rigs with the self-driving variety.

The Faster Lane

Google, Tesla, and Apple (reportedly) have all worked on creating driverless cars. The route these companies have decided to go -- due to Tesla's nature, according to rumors about Apple, and made manifestly obvious by Google's cute car pods -- is to build new driverless cars from the ground up.

Otto's strategy is different, and represents a much faster way to introduce self-driving technology to the fleet of over 4 million commercial trucks that haul goods across the country every day.

Otto wants to equip existing big rigs with an array of tech to turn them into autonomous trucks.

"To speed the adoption of self-driving technology, we began by equipping existing trucks on the road with our unique self-driving kit," wrote Otto co-founders Anthony Levandowski and Lior Ron on the company's introductory blog post. "We are developing a suite of sensors, software and truck enhancements coming together in a product that can be quickly outfitted on existing trucks."

Right now, the company is testing its self-driving kit -- which Otto says will cost a "small fraction" of the price of a new big rig cab -- with a fleet of three research vehicles in Nevada, and just completed its first autonomous demonstration on a public highway.

The scale of Otto's intentions behind its invention is clear. Otto plans to "bring this technology to every corner of the U.S. highway system."

The Definition of Disruption

"Disruption" has become an overused term in Silicon Valley over the past decade, but the ambition and possibilities inherent to Otto's mission and method earn the genuine application of this buzzword.

That's because the trucking industry is huge -- and a vital part of the United States economy. Trucking accounts for than three million jobs in the U.S. economy, and millions more employed in related industries. According to American Trucking Association figures cited by The New York Times, about one in every 15 people employed in the U.S. is touched by the trucking industry.

And while Otto stops short of promising to replace truckers entirely -- the co-founders wrote their kit is "designed to empower truck drivers to drive more safely and efficiently" and is only meant to drive the rigs "exit to exit" on highways -- the economic implications of automating trucks to even that extent are likely huge.

The driver will still be there, rest assured, but will become little more than a chauffer to safely get the trucks through city streets, to and from their final destinations. "We want to get the technology to the point where it's safe to let the driver rest and sleep in his cabin and we can drive for him," said Otto to Backchannel. "This is what allows us to change 11 hours' driving into 24."

Otto rightly plays up the other disruptive element of their plans: safety. Truckers are only allowed to drive 11 hours per day for safety reasons, but Otto points out that the accident rate goes up "exponentially" after hour 10.

And truck accidents are disproportionately dangerous to public safety compared to other vehicles. According to U.S. Department of Transportation data, while trucks account for about 5.6 percent of total miles driven nationally, they are responsible for 9.5 of highway fatalities.

Robots Hit the Road

While Otto may have the most expedient plan to automate trucking, it's not guaranteed to be the pivot point for a multi-billion dollar industry.

But it's also not alone. Just last month, Quartz reported that Volvo and Daimler had just completed a week of their self-driving trucks traveling over a thousand miles across Europe.

Translation: it's just a matter of time. Automation is not only increasingly driving change, it's probably taking the driver's seat sooner than you think.

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