Automated technology developers are shooting for the moon when they could instead be implementing ground-level initiatives in trucking, the founder of Starsky Robotics says.

Starsky Robotics became the first self-driving truck startup to cease operations after raising an estimated $17 million in venture capital in 2018, then failing later to secure more investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

Loadsmart and Starsky Robotics said the companies have automatically dispatched an autonomous truck to haul freight.

Automated truck technology startup Starsky Robotics successfully completed its first unmanned test drive on a public highway June 16.

Along a rural stretch of sunny farmland in south-central Florida, a heavy-duty truck drove itself for seven miles on a public road with nobody on board the vehicle.

Just before Stefan Seltz-Axmacher offers a job to an engineer at Starsky Robotics Inc., a driverless trucking startup in San Francisco, he gives them “the talk.”