Thieves in California ended up with loads of nothing but sand after stealing two Nvidia branded trailers from an autonomous trucking company in California.
Workers at the PlusAI warehouse in Fremont, California discovered that two of their trailers had been stolen just after 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, September 24th.
According to San Francisco Standard, both trailers were branded with Nvidia logos on the side, but were only loaded with a combined 20 tons of sand to simulate real freight during research and development of the autonomous trucks. The employees that contacted police reported that the trucks and trailers had been forcibly separated and the truck cab was moved. Besides the trailers being gone, there was nothing else on the property that appeared to have been tampered with.
Security footage also revealed two unknown semi trucks driving around the property.
“Those were not our tractors. Those were from the thieves,” said VP of Marketing Lauren Kwan.
As the company was filing police and insurance reports on the stolen trailers, PlusAI’s VP of Legal received a text from a friend with a photo attached showing the trailers parked outside of an office in Newark, California; not far from the warehouse they’d been stolen from.
“I have been proud of you for your adventure and success at Plus,” the friend wrote. “Just saw two of your trucks near my work place! :)”
The company sent over some employees to confirm the trailers were really theirs, and called police to help them recover the trailers. The company says that the trailer doors had been broken into, but all of the simulated cargo sand was still inside. The company says they believe the Nvidia branding on the side of the trailers prompted the thieves to steal them, assuming there was valuable cargo inside.
“The very apparent branding probably made them think there was very valuable equipment back there,” said Kwan.
The case is still under investigation and no arrests have been made.
