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Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

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Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#131

Post by maxerickson »

sol_remmy wrote: post #36
LethargicStud wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, the idea of stifling innovation to "preserve jobs" is harmful to society. Upon choosing a career, you should consider the longevity of that career. Some people will still pick wrong for a multitude of reasons. Hopefully, those people can pivot. It is unreasonable to hold the entire population back to continue employing those in a specific field. If we consistently did that, we'd be in the stone age and our…

Absolutely. Automated trucks will allow shipping costs to be much cheaper which will stimulate the economy in 1000 different ways

Shipping is already cheap. Especially bulk shipping.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#132

Post by Dylan16807 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #90
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When trains become competitive with road transport, maybe we should move more to using trains. Until then, we won't, and we shouldn't. (If it's a matter of externalities/hidden subsidies, then the costs of these externalities must be brought to the entity causing them, e.g. via taxes.) I don't know why (in Germany) a long-distance bus is much cheaper than a train (from/to the same city), but it is. We shouldn't be tr…

If trucks had to pay the full cost of road wear, then trains would be a lot more attractive for long hauls -- road wear is proportional to the 4th power of axle weight [1] An 80,000 pound truck has 8X the axle weigh of a 2000 pound car, so should be paying 4096 times more road taxes than the car. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_axle_weight_rating#Impor...

Sort of. It looks like a car does about 4x more damage per axle because of using a single narrow tire[1]. If you compare a pretty typical 4000 pound car to that maxed-out truck, you would then only get a 64x difference (maybe closer to 100 depending on weight distribution). Oh and then multiply by the number of axles.

It would be interesting to look at the costs and savings of 6 or 8 axles in the back. There's plenty of room to fit, and you could drop wear by a factor of 10.

Let's also not forget that the truck probably has over a hundred times as much payload as an average car.

[1] http://www.nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=601

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#133

Post by madeofpalk »

knieveltech wrote: post #63
madeofpalk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just enough of it that they can skirt the DOT hour rules Source?

Source: plausible extrapolation based on Uber's storied history of violating labor laws to one extent or another in just about every market they've entered.

Come on, I'm not a fan of Uber and their shady history, but you can't just invent claims out of thin air based on your feelings.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#134

Post by golemiprague »

masklinn wrote: post #122
kingbirdy wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data mostly looks like population data then, if US, India, and China are the leaders. What would it look like for ton-mile per capita (if that's actually a statistic)?

> The data mostly looks like population data then The US has a smaller population than the EU (~300m to ~500m). So does Russia (150m). Australia has a significantly smaller population than the EU (15^H^H25m as golemiprague noted). It's not population data it's mineral commodities. > What would it look like for ton-mile per capita (if that's actually a statistic)? The US would climb to ~15x the tonnes-kilometers per c…

Australia has close to 25m

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#135

Post by iak8god »

LethargicStud wrote: post #33
nopinsight wrote: post #8

For those concerned with jobs to be eliminated, it might not be as big a problem as we think for the trucking industry. "Over the next 10 years, he said, we need to attract almost 900,000 new people to the industry. Demographics is a big part of the problem. ATA’s research arm, the American Transportation Research Institute, recently updated its demographic data on drivers and found some 57% of drivers are 45 or olde…

Generally, the idea of stifling innovation to "preserve jobs" is harmful to society. Upon choosing a career, you should consider the longevity of that career. Some people will still pick wrong for a multitude of reasons. Hopefully, those people can pivot. It is unreasonable to hold the entire population back to continue employing those in a specific field. If we consistently did that, we'd be in the stone age and our…

> Upon choosing a career, you should consider the longevity of that career.

Isn't it lucky we humans are so very good at predicting the future!?

When I was taking computer vision courses little more than a decade ago, self driving cars were pure science fiction. Part of me hopes software development is the next job we automate away, just so everyone in forums like this who are so impressed with their own excellent life choices can see what it's like to be on the other end of this.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#136

Post by jonknee »

masklinn wrote: post #80
djrogers wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truckers generally get paid per mile, not per hour. They are also heavily regulated as to the number of hours they can drive (why you see so many husband/wife driving teams). One can easily foresee a future where a self-driving truck has a driver in it who is only driving 'regulated' hours for a small portion of a trip (say during high traffic, highway entry/exit, etc). The driver could spend the rest of his time sle…

> One can easily foresee a future where a self-driving truck has a driver in it who is only driving 'regulated' hours for a small portion of a trip (say during high traffic, highway entry/exit, etc). The driver could spend the rest of his time sleeping, reading, or coding - he'd basically be a passenger. That kinda already exists though, with team driving. Two pilots relaying gives ~22h of driving per 24h plus 2x30mn…

> That kinda already exists though, with team driving. Two pilots relaying gives ~22h of driving per 24h plus 2x30mn slack (under US regs, though there's still a limit of 70h/8 days followed by 34h rest per driver).

So at minimum labor costs could halve... Sounds like a huge productivity boost.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#137

Post by fareesh »

inverse_pi wrote: post #102
fareesh wrote: post #95

Does the self driving truck have any kind of security? Given that there is a "do no harm" program embedded into the driving "subroutines", is there anything that prevents thieves from essentially surrounding the truck and robbing it in the middle of nowhere? Edit: To clarify I mean - in a hypothetical situation where it is ever driverless, couldnt 10 of us surround it, while I walk in and commandeer it, disable GPS a…

What prevents 10 of us from surrounding a real truck, walking in, forcing the driver out and driving off? https://xkcd.com/1958/

I guess we are presuming that drivers wouldn't simply step on the gas in that kind of situation.

Also I suspect the absence of a human being in the situation would psychologically make the theft feel "less wrong" to many would-be criminals.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#138

Post by lawguy »

masklinn wrote: post #115
ktpsns wrote: post #92

The funny thing in this US-centric view is that we have such a cargo since a century where trains play the role of "self-driving cargo". In europe, the decline of cargo on tracks (trains) is also partially owed to subsidiation of automobile traffic and highway expansions. It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks.

I think that's misplaced, freight is the one area where NA in general and US in particular absolutely blows every other region out the water. Circa 2010 Rail was ~40% of US freight by ton-mile, whereas for the EU it was ~17%, and the US had 10x more tonne-kilometer freight rail than the EU (beyond China and Russia, with India a very distant third) (nb: China carried more tonnes total but shorter distances) Of course…

> Hell one of the reasons passenger trains is shit in the US is that passenger rail does not get priority over freight

They do have priority:

> (c) Preference over freight transportation. -- Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing...

http://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-49-transportation/49-usc-s...

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#139

Post by CaptSpify »

LethargicStud wrote: post #33
nopinsight wrote: post #8

For those concerned with jobs to be eliminated, it might not be as big a problem as we think for the trucking industry. "Over the next 10 years, he said, we need to attract almost 900,000 new people to the industry. Demographics is a big part of the problem. ATA’s research arm, the American Transportation Research Institute, recently updated its demographic data on drivers and found some 57% of drivers are 45 or olde…

Generally, the idea of stifling innovation to "preserve jobs" is harmful to society. Upon choosing a career, you should consider the longevity of that career. Some people will still pick wrong for a multitude of reasons. Hopefully, those people can pivot. It is unreasonable to hold the entire population back to continue employing those in a specific field. If we consistently did that, we'd be in the stone age and our…

Although I agree with you, the problem (in the US at least) is that pivoting is nearly impossible for a large group of people. Our educational system is expensive and generally has terrible quality, and we don't have very good social programs to help float people while they are getting re-educated.

If we push innovation without changing these problems, it's not gonna be pretty.

Re: Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

#140

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

undersuit wrote: post #50
mtgx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will Uber pay a bigger portion of the road repair taxes? Especially considering truckers already pay a disproportionately lower tax compared to the impact they have on the roads.

In the United States trucks are already taxed at higher rates because of their weights. That's why we have weight stations scattered throughout our highways though automation and technology have reduced their need. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weigh_station

I think there's still an argument that it's not enough, as road wear varies with the 4th power of tire load. Ultimately time is another factor in road wear and breakdown, so utilization rates matter, but on balance freight traffic is subsidized.
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