Robot trucks?? Are you kidding??

I remember my 6th grade teacher saying that electronic tolling technology would never be practical in the next 20 years and would require too much infrastructure investmentbin any case. 2 years later Ipass was introduced, 10 years for full open road tolling in Illinois.

She also said China was so poor and backwards they could never compete with the US. 10 years later and we were wondering when China would become the world's dominate market.

Predicting the future isn't easy, those who say "never gonna happen" eat their words as much as the wide eyed dreamers. Are autonomous trucks going to eliminate drivers in the next decade? Not a chance. But they are going to dramatically change the industry. As we roll down I55 in Illinois we'll be doing payroll, or accounts payable, of HR, or sales, or dispatch, or etc. Every large office used to have a typing pool and a mail room full of clerks.

 

While true, remember this...

Google started working on autonomous cars over 10 years ago. In that ten years we went from cruse control, to a slightly better speed and lane sensing cruse control that requires a human driver to take over when it gets it wrong.
Will we have self driving cars and trucks? Sure, it's silly to think otherwise in my mind. The question becomes will we have it in my lifetime. Maybe in a very limited space like open interstates, or known, well mapped roads. But to think we need to worry about it now is a bit premature.

 

Yeah but your example of toll collection is not a difficult task to automate because it's only a few tasks with no real variables. Automating jobs like truck driving that has a 1,000 different variables will be extremely difficult to fully automate.

 

I really don't think we're that far off. Think of it in money terms. Currently, highway maintenance and improvement is paid, mostly, from user fees. Fuel and registration taxes. Even at $0.50 a gallon some states charge, fuel taxes are only ten cents a mile. Less mostly, but 10 cents a mile makes for easy math.

Now, say the infrastructure improvement required to make autonomous vehicles a reality will DOUBLE the costs of our highways, bridges and byways....... Can you see the ginormous, glittering pile of money that would be?

If we double the per mile taxes on autonomous vehicles from $0.10 to $0.20, and they would still save close to $1.30 per mile for every autonomous vehicle. The investment required is just tiny compared to the savings.

 

I need someone to call my first stop in Bartlett, Tn tomorrow and tell them to improve their infrastructure so I can get to the dock without tearing up my truck. Then call my 2nd stop and pick up the nails in the parking lot and move the cones out of the way (infrastructure am I right?) Then call my third stop and tell them to grind down that curb so I don't have to jump it (#infrastructure problems). Then call my fourth stop and tell them to widen their parking lot so I don't have to pull into the yard across the street and back down a hill (infrastructure strikes again!) (Luckily I told them to not load it on a skirted trailer). My fifth stop is actually somewhat easy. Please hurry up autonomous truck and show me how it's done. It's almost as if these places were built twenty and thirty years ago and not anticipating robot trucks or 53' trailers for that matter.

 

The point I was trying to make was that its hard to gauge how long progress will take.

Amazon, EBay, Netflix were all regarded as impractical business models. They lost millions a year for many years but are now some of the most profitable companies.

The first I saw of natural gas truck stations was in 2011ish, now the infrastructure is there across the Midwest. Not all stations are open, but as demand rises the capacity is there. Hybrid/electric cars in 2000 regularly self- immoliate. Now the technology is old hat.

There is a well financed, multi front effort to create this product. It's not ready for prime time yet, but it will be within the next decade.

 

And how much time will you spend on the interstate in between stops? It will be a long, long time before a computer can handle ltl work, or get into a lot of customers or handle surface streets. The truck drives itself on the interstate while the driver attends to other matters, when hitting the surface street the meat sack in the truck changes from office drone to truck driver.

 

First of all, I absolutely will not allow any vehicle to drive me as I sit there and have to be at the ready waiting for a malfunction. I also won't do it for less money that I am doing it now, even if it means I have to walk away from trucking altogether. I see what you are getting at and the advantage of autonomous vehicles, but i don't need to attend to other matters. I have done a thorough pre trip, fueled, and know the route before I leave. I know what time each stop opens and which one I can take my 30 minute break at.

I know better than any computer or GPS the best way to go between stops and where issues arise. I bring tools to make repairs and I am quite capable in all facets of this job. No matter how much they hype it up, these new plastic trucks and electronics are absolute garbage. I had to turn my super duper Elog tablet off today since it froze up, and I have had to figure out why the charger stopped working after two months. Garbage.

 

I'm not doing this for effect, but this stupid IPad just froze up helping prove my point. And this IPad has been sitting in a 75 degree house and not in a truck, bouncing up and down the road, getting road salt in it, dirt, rain etc. I would have thrown it if it didn't belong to my wife.

 

You are missing one point. The autonomous truck is not your truck.

See, an autonomous truck doesn't have a driver. So it doesn't need a cab. It doesn't need a windshield, or a steering wheel, or a door, none of that. It can be substantially shorter. Lower. Conceivably, the truck would be low enough to make a complete circle underneath the trailer. Approaching the tight dock, the tractor could spin under the trailer, and then push instead of pull. Wanna try that with your tractor? Wanna see which setup would be more maneuverable?

At the same time, locations that need a human driver will get a higher freight rate than those set up for autonomous delivery. Just like residential deliveries now pay more than commercial deliveries. Businesses will adapt very quickly when they have to pay significant surcharges to get their stuff. They'll modify, or move. Or go out of business. There's too much money involved.