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On Trucking

snowingpine.com

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Re: On Trucking

#71

Post by snowypine »

s1mon wrote: post #59

I’m surprised with how much care went into breaking down the various pieces of the industry, there was zero mention of the Teamsters Union. Nor is there much mention of any of the human issues which lead to things like most trucking companies failing in the first couple of years. Perhaps looking at trucking from a human centered design perspective would identify problems and needs which are missing from this otherwis…

Author here - there's definitely a lot about trucking that I didn't get to cover. E.g. growth in autonomous vehicles, the issues recruiting drivers, federal regulation, and the lasting impacts of unions.

That being said, human centered design probably doesn't work in trucking. The assumption here is that people within a certain role has a fixed set of pain points. The truth is that trucking is too wide to categorize in that way. E.g. I met dispatchers that had a really hard time finding loads, but others had a really hard time getting drivers to pay them. Every person's experience and pain points in trucking are all slightly different simply due to the nature of the industry.

I think there's certainly an education component to most trucking companies failing but the root of the problem is the design of the industry.

Re: On Trucking

#72

Post by snowypine »

college_physics wrote: post #30

hmm, I would have expected at least some token references to environmental sustainability / impacts, energy risks (and opportunities) etc.

I actually had some figures around energy impact in earlier drafts of the piece. The issue I kept running into was the range of data - trucking is more inefficient than rail. But the question is how much, it could be as little as 2x more energy or as much as 100x more energy.

It depends on factors like load weight, truck conditions, rail route, and a bunch more.

Re: On Trucking

#73

Post by ShredKazoo »

Has anyone estimated what the impact on the trucking industry would be if the US repealed the Jones Act? Most of America's biggest cities are adjacent to ocean or other waterways, and water transport is cheaper than land transport. So it seems fairly plausible to me that the American trucking industry in its current form is basically just a huge source of excess carbon emissions, created as a result of bad regulation.

Here is some info on the Jones Act for those who are unfamiliar: https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/jones-act-...

Re: On Trucking

#74

Post by maxerickson »

yourapostasy wrote: post #32
gnfargbl wrote: post #19

The article claims about 3 million truck tractors on US roads, and puts the cost of each driver at about $65k/year. Am I correct in naively calculating something like $200B/year on the table for full-self-driving truck technology?

That’s what is at stake, but monetization will be less than that valuation because Level 5 autonomy roughly expands capacity 3X (bots don’t sleep), so there likely will be somewhat less monetized value. Might need to add the capex of equipment costs, and subtract the externalities costs of increases wear and tear on infrastructure and equipment.

You probably have to kind of expect the outcome of successful autonomy and electrification to be 'weird'. We can't really predict what makes sense when we don't know where the costs and capabilities will end up.

Re: On Trucking

#75

Post by philshem »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #15

Relevant John McPhee article from a couple of decades ago: https://archive.md/5GIIg He rode across the country with an owner operator, and he tells the story. "A true truck has eighteen wheels, or more. From Atlanta and Charlotte to North Powder, Oregon, this was the first time that Ainsworth had so much as tapped his air horn. In three thousand one hundred and ninety miles I rode with him he used it four times. He g…

Thanks for posting. Here’s the original url for any of us who subscribe and want to save the article in the app

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/02/17/a-fleet-of-one

Re: On Trucking

#76

Post by snowypine »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #42
mrhektor wrote: post #26

Super interesting analysis of the trucking market. A couple of questions would be: * At what speed is the industry going to embrace self-driving / "augmented driving" in trucks? I'd imagine a driver would still be required at the wheel in case of emergencies for the foreseeable future. What new skills would truckers have to learn? * Given the environmental impact of trucking (self-driving or not), what are some inter…

IMHO (and this is just my relatively uninformed opinion), the key driving force here will be the shift to electric trucks. These are more expensive to buy but cheaper to operate. At least right now. And also easier to turn into self driving platforms. ICE trucks are really hard to operate. You are basically micro managing the gears, dealing with lot of fairly complex bit of equipment, etc. Electric trucks basically h…

Agreed with electric trucks! Here's another W22 company focusing on building electric trucks - https://www.sixwheel.com

Re: On Trucking

#77

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #60
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So in both cases the aim is to act as a labour cartel to redistribute economic surplus from either consumers, firms or potential competition to insiders. After reading that, you can safely ignore any comments for this person regarding European unions. I can guarantee you it’s an American and they have no idea of what they are talking about. Unions in Europe have little to do with their American counterparts. Member…

I’m Irish. Having studied Economics does not make me an American. Economic surplus can either go to consumers in the form of lower prices, the firm’s owners in profits or current workers in wages. As > representative of labour for negotiations in your words they try to get as much of the economic surplus for themselves as possible. They can do this with a long time horizon like German unions where there’s s considera…

> I’m Irish. Having studied Economics does not make me an American. Economic surplus can either go to consumers in the form of lower prices, the firm’s owners in profits or current workers in wages.

Don’t worry I studied economics too.

You are confusing value added and economic surplus. That doesn’t bode well for the rest of your argument.

A change in labour costs is a shift in the equilibrium point. It doesn’t come from a surplus.

> Cartel isn’t a term of abuse. It’s a description of the entire point of a union. They monopolise labour and negotiate with employers to the benefit of the average worker.

Of course it is a term of abuse.

Collective representation isn’t about monopolising labour as a casual glance to any union in a western country like France would have told you. In France no union has more than a measly 2% of the work force. Yet they play an important role.

Re: On Trucking

#78

Post by snowypine »

coderintherye wrote: post #4

Awesome write-up. Would be really curious for insight into why truck purchase loans run 8-10% APR with 20% down. If anything, I'd expect them to be lower risk and easier to re-posses?

I'd say it's more market conditions over anything else. Truck drivers generally have poor credit - they're not going to be able to come up with ~400k otherwise. As a result, you get lenders that charge more.

Also, repossessing trucks across the country is kinda an issue. You might need to drive hundreds or thousands of miles to claim the truck which is a nightmare that carriers deal with on a daily basis.

Re: On Trucking

#79

Post by snowypine »

cobertos wrote: post #12

The article mentions that a lot of the trucking spot market takes place on load boards (DAT, Truckstop, etc...) How did the spot market work before the internet/the proliferation of technological devices? Where did the "pool" of owner operators hang out before the internet? Or was trucking completely unlike it is today?

DAT's full name is "Dial a truck". They used to have these large screens in truck stops showing loads and encouraging drivers to call for loads.

So I guess these drivers mostly hung out at truck stops (they still do today), just that most truck stops aren't as clean/nice as before.

Re: On Trucking

#80

Post by digdugdirk »

ShredKazoo wrote: post #73

Has anyone estimated what the impact on the trucking industry would be if the US repealed the Jones Act? Most of America's biggest cities are adjacent to ocean or other waterways, and water transport is cheaper than land transport. So it seems fairly plausible to me that the American trucking industry in its current form is basically just a huge source of excess carbon emissions, created as a result of bad regulation…

It would be interesting, for sure. Unfortunately, decades of waterway infrastructure neglect would leave a massive gap between where things stand now, and where they would need to be in order to utilize waterway transportation outside of existing facilities. For example - it would enable higher volume transport of commodities (that are currently shipped by river) along rivers, but we don't really have any river-based shipping container ports in existence now. The expansion/creation/upgrades to existing facilities would take time and money, and as the article points out... The trucking industry has managed to externalize those infrastructure costs onto the taxpayer - why would a shipping company lay down that uncertain investment when they have to compete with an industry that doesn't have to do any of that?
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