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The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

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Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#171

Post by amatix »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #21
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the last mile is where driverless trucks are most useful. For long haul, you can just use trains.

Actually you can't, for a lot of goods. Reason is that the railroad won't give you the same guarantees and trackability a truck will. Example: you have refrigerated items (let's say a shipment of fresh fruit) that has to be maintained at a constant temperature and you want it delivered to your customer on Thursday when you ship Sunday night. Truck: not a problem, and you can easily get updates all the time from dispa…

> Railroad: maybe they will get it there, maybe they won't. > If the railroad puts a refrigerator unit on your boxcar and it breaks down, too bad - they won't reimburse you. A trucking company will.

Sounds like both of those are more to do with shit rail companies than inherent downsides of rail (or upsides of trucking)?

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#172

Post by amatix »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #84

Can someone explain why we're supposedly getting driverless cars and trucks yet the simplistic task of ordering food isn't automated? Why does McDonald's have order takers?

Upselling? Why did several fuel stations pull out their pay-at-pump systems and force you to go into the store to pay -- so they can sell you more stuff you didn't originally intend to by (that they also make better margin on).

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#173

Post by JonoW »

peterwwillis wrote: post #104
ctvo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trucks are way more complicated to drive. Once they're up to cruising speed, they're easy. But it's everything leading up to that point which is hard. Dealing with gear changes, airbrakes, load shifting, other vehicles that will inevitably cut you off, and much more. The mechanical aspects of controlling a large truck and accounting for the variables is probably the easiest part of the problem. Things involving hum…

Yes. Truckers have to deal with a sort of standard "road safety dilemma" all the time, which can be boiled down to this: A trucker is driving a 40 ton truck at 65mph. A passenger car with a family of four cuts in front of it, and the distance is closing fast. A passenger car takes roughly 315 feet to come to a complete stop. A fully loaded truck takes 525 feet. The trucker now has to make a decision. A) Do I slam on…

The article mentions driverless trucks would drive slower, at 45mph, wouldn't this make a key difference in this scenario, eg a much shorter breaking distance. Also, a driverless vehicle has one option a manned vehicle doesn't - self destruction to save life, eg drive off the side of the road and crash (assuming it could determine that no one was there)

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#174

Post by schiffern »

JonoW wrote: post #173
peterwwillis wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Truckers have to deal with a sort of standard "road safety dilemma" all the time, which can be boiled down to this: A trucker is driving a 40 ton truck at 65mph. A passenger car with a family of four cuts in front of it, and the distance is closing fast. A passenger car takes roughly 315 feet to come to a complete stop. A fully loaded truck takes 525 feet. The trucker now has to make a decision. A) Do I slam on…

The article mentions driverless trucks would drive slower, at 45mph, wouldn't this make a key difference in this scenario, eg a much shorter breaking distance. Also, a driverless vehicle has one option a manned vehicle doesn't - self destruction to save life, eg drive off the side of the road and crash (assuming it could determine that no one was there)

>. Also, a driverless vehicle has one option a manned vehicle doesn't - self destruction to save life,

Don't they?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30,000_Pounds_of_Bananas#The_i...

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#175

Post by loeg »

jejones3141 wrote: post #90

At one point the author says something about convoys of trucks and taking advantage of the speed for maximum fuel efficiency, 45 mph. I'm not sure that people traveling on the interstate will appreciate being stuck behind convoys of automated trucks all running at 45 mph.

If they stayed in the right lane it wouldn't be too much of a problem. The problem with trucks vs cars I run into most today is trucks passing other trucks in the left lane, or middle lanes on 3- or 4-lane highways. A convoy isn't the same thing as three trucks abreast, though.

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#176

Post by afterburner »

Homunculiheaded wrote: post #103

A very useful visual to add next to this is "The Most Common Job In Every State"[0] map from NPR's Planet Money. As soon as I was aware of the research in autonomous driving I was pretty confident trucking would be the first industry hit. Until I saw that map I had no sense of how major of a disruption this could be. [0] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...

A very interesting map, but:

"The prominence of truck drivers is partly due to the way the government categorizes jobs. It lumps together all truck drivers and delivery people, creating a very large category. Other jobs are split more finely; for example, primary school teachers and secondary school teachers are in separate categories."

... I really wish they'd collapsed some of those categories, could have been even more revealing.

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#177

Post by adrianN »

dv_dt wrote: post #155
peterwwillis wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Truckers have to deal with a sort of standard "road safety dilemma" all the time, which can be boiled down to this: A trucker is driving a 40 ton truck at 65mph. A passenger car with a family of four cuts in front of it, and the distance is closing fast. A passenger car takes roughly 315 feet to come to a complete stop. A fully loaded truck takes 525 feet. The trucker now has to make a decision. A) Do I slam on…

Given that an automated truck will follow a certain safety framework, it's interesting to contemplate if there might be automated truck pirates. Jam mobile connectivity, run the truck off the road by herding it with other vehicles, then break in and run-away with the goods or the entire trailer for that matter.

You can also do that with a human in the truck. I'm not convinced that it will happen more often with automated trucks.

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#178

Post by f_allwein »

I think it's a misunderstanding that self-driving trucks will not have drivers on board. Or am I being naive? See this article on Daimler's recent trial in Germany:

"While self-driving is the name of the game, Highway Pilot isn't about letting those behind the wheel plonk their feet on the dashboard and snooze their way to their destination. Daimler likens the system to the autopilot used in aviation, in that the driver must be prepared to take control at any time." http://www.gizmag.com/daimlers-production-autonomous-truck-d...

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#179

Post by mschuster91 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #157
mschuster91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For long haul, you can just use trains. RoLa (Rollende Landstraße) as we call this in Germany, or just transporting the flatbed carriages, requires a SHITLOAD of manual work, unlike containers where you don't even need people on the locos in the yard anymore. Not to mention that long-haul-via-rail is only viable in the US... in Europe, it virtually doesn't exist anymore. It just isn't profitable due to various exte…

> 2) freight trains don't get priority over passenger trains Freight trains get priority here and it still doesn't make sense to ship by train. Rail is pretty limited by the huge size of our country, and they need to be able to ship to tiny random stores all over the place. It makes more sense to send one truck that can stop anywhere there's a road than send it out via train and then transfer to a local truck, which…

> Rail is pretty limited by the huge size of our country

Quite the contrary, the US is better suited for rail than the rest of the world, at least for cross-country moving of goods (one single area of law, no customs crap to deal with, the only thing I'm not sure is signalling and interoperability of locomotives on rail systems in different states).

Trains are perfect for inter-city travel, the first/last mile should be handled with trucks unless the facility is so large that it can source or sink a huge number of trains (e.g. automobile, steel factories, coal mines, fossil power plants).

Re: The driverless truck is coming, and it’s going to automate millions of jobs

#180

Post by Symbiote »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #21
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the last mile is where driverless trucks are most useful. For long haul, you can just use trains.

Actually you can't, for a lot of goods. Reason is that the railroad won't give you the same guarantees and trackability a truck will. Example: you have refrigerated items (let's say a shipment of fresh fruit) that has to be maintained at a constant temperature and you want it delivered to your customer on Thursday when you ship Sunday night. Truck: not a problem, and you can easily get updates all the time from dispa…

Just in time delivery by rail works in Europe, perhaps because the track is maintained to a high standard and can be relied upon, and the timetable adhered to to avoid delaying passenger trains.
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