Self driving trucks

It might be better to be one of the unemployed then. Anyone still working will be taxed into poverty trying to pay for all the new welfare programs that'll be needed. If I'm gonna be in complete poverty, I sure ain't gonna work too.

 

Before autonomous trucks get common, freightliner better get them a lot more dependable. I have a Cascadia with a meritor radars in it. A radar will be required on them driverless trucks too. This radar is a pain. If it goes too long with out sensing anything, it faults out, kills my cruise control, and gives me a code indicating the sensor is blocked. And it won't start working again till I shut the truck off for a couple minutes. And in Nevada, where they are testing that, I can see the radar doing that pretty often.

 

LOL, I hear that. I am interested to see what happens. In the past technology has created more jobs on the back-end, like moving from agricultural to industrial. The thing that most people are concerned about this time is we may have reached a point of diminishing returns, where technology replaces tons of people but creates nothing to replace it. Each advancement eliminates more jobs and creates less supporting jobs.

I doubt this stuff will happen by 2020 but it's definitely coming around the corner.

 

Are you paid for all the time you're not driving? Probably not. You get to ride along for nothing or maybe 10 bucks an hour. And if you check the federal overtime rules, guess what? OTR Truck drivers don't get overtime. They're exempt. At least by most companies. It's their choice.

 

Truckers going to be mad making $50 a week LOL

 

I'm not really too worried about it. Popular Science magazine once made a prediction that we'd all be flying around in helicopters by now, because roads are expensive and inefficient. I'm sure a big part, other than cost, of why we aren't, is computers and machines aren't dependable enough. Can't even watch you tube videos on my laptop with out it locking up or losing the WiFi signal.

 

Aircraft is pretty much fully automated now, pilots do very little these days. The issue with flying cars is really cost, energy, & the amount of vehicles that would be landing in peoples living rooms. just not practical, even though it is fully possible and has been for a long time.

That's where it'll be interesting to see how these play out, autonomous cars & trucks could be a total flop. I just look at how much people deal with breakdowns now with regular trucks, now you're adding more and more parts to fail and be replaced.

The electronics are going have to be Class 3 to be safe which means 10x the cost of normal electronics as each board has to be inspected every step of the way, solder joints inspected with microscopes, etc. I did work on aerospace & military circuit boards and it's very thorough & expensive unlike Chinese Class 1 just rush it through mass production cheap junk electronics.

So I can't image the cost these will be once available for retail, if it's at the same price point you see today 150-200k one of two things are happening.

1. The manufacturer is eating the cost to get them out the door

2. They scimped on electronics

If it's #2, get hit by one and enjoy retiring on a private island!

 

It would take to much infrastructure (satalites etc.) to make this work, straight scifi, and you would still need a a person on board to handle situations that may occur.

 

I think I'll start picking out my favorite bricks to throw.

 

Sounds more Iike someones been watching too much tv