What Do You Think of Autonomous Trucks?

You could ask him but he's dead.

 

Not going to get much freight in that.

 

No need to ask, I've already decided Swift was at fault.

 

This technology is over ten years old. This truck can drive its self. It can be drive by its human handlers by remote control from the operating base. A human driver can also climb in and drive it.

 

Wow military applications..So like the Terminator is going to be real?

 

It is funny how so many people don't realize how close we are to autonomous vehicles lol
The main reason we haven't seen them yet is because the regulators are still working out how to legislate it, so they can only be run under special permits with a driver monitoring it, but for instance Google's autonomous cars have driven millions of accident-free miles already, so are ready to lose their driver, as soon as the laws allow it. (which is already in progress)

Where it expect to see the first use of autonomous trucks is in platooning (one driver in the lead truck, with 2 or 3 autonomous trucks following in close formation)
This will mainly be between terminals, probably of LTL carriers, but I would expect that large truckload carriers would also use it to move trailers from one terminal to another.
To start with, they probably would be running the non-urban routes, so I wouldn't expect to see them in LA, San Francisco or New York right away, but there are long stretches of wide open freeways all across the country with lots of loads to haul.

The next step past platooning would be fully autonomous trucks between terminals, probably as a pilot program between some carefully selected terminals in some wide open state with lots of straight and level roads.

Basically, the technology is already here and ready for road testing and working the bugs out. With trucks, they aren't quite ready to go solo, but they are close enough that I can expect to see someone running a trail route out in the desert or something soon.

Tesla is going to unveil its electric semi this week, and I would be surprised if it isn't designed with autonomous versions in mind.

I wish actually be surprised if someone like Musk/Tesla doesn't put an autonomous truck on a freight hauling route within a year or two at the most, probably out in Nevada or Texas somewhere, but actually hauling freight between two warehouses for profit.

And when you remember that hiring drivers is the most expensive part of running a truck, it makes sense that they would be willing to spend a bit more money upfront front and avoid having to pay a driver.

As far as the liability, yes, there will be accidents, and people will try to blame the autonomous truck for everything, and any company that truly does negligence will probably good bankrupt from the lawsuit, but if the autonomous trucks have a better record than humans, (which I expect), they will continue growing in useage.
They will be demonized, kind of like the autonomous bus that was involved in a wreck in Las Vegas last week, about an hour after its grand unveiling, and all the news media, including the tech news, was saying "autonomous bus crashes into truck 2 hours into its use",but actually the bus had stopped when the truck cut it off, and the truck then reverses and backed into the bus!
So totally not a problem with the bus, and the truck driver was cited for it, but most of the articles made it sound like the bus was at fault.

Now, do we need to worry about it costing us our jobs?
If you work for a company where all you do is shuttle full trailers from one yard or warehouse to another, then yes. You basically only are needed to keep it between the lines, and that can be done by computer.
If you bring some value-added skill program ability to your job, putting snow chains on, loading or running unloading, dealing with nasty city environments, customer service, or irregular routes, than you probably won't be replaced by a robot anytime soon, though you need to worry about all the ltl shuttle drivers looking for new jobs.

Remember, this process has been happening ever since the industrial revolution, with automation replacing cotton combers, weavers, coal miners with picks, electronic component placement, food preparation, and so many other jobs where we used to have factories full of people doing repetitive and unskilled work, where automation could do it better and faster and more cheaper.

It is going to happen to trucking, and you can predict where it will start by looking at the low hanging fruit; the high paid, identical route every day, full trailer, drop and hook jobs.
All they need is a yard jockey at each end to prepare the loads, hitch and unhitch the trailers, and fuel or charge the trucks, then hit the green button to send them on the way.

Russia is for some reason encouraging Trump to FastTrack this technology. I can't imagine what makes them interested in it... *evil laugh*

 

Electric trucks. Uh huh.

 

Tesla Truck

 

Elon Musk Reveals Details on "Mind Blowing" Tesla Semi Truck Debut | Inverse

 

Uh huh... and by 2018 everyone is gonna buy one. I guess I am just a dummy who cannot see the writing on the wall. It’s just I would think by now I would see a driverless truck one time somewhere if we need to brace ourselves for it.