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On Trucking

snowingpine.com

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Re: On Trucking

#81

Post by snowypine »

adaml_623 wrote: post #24
yafbum wrote: post #3

Great rundown. "Factoring" sounds a bit like a euphemism for payday loans!

There was an interesting sentence in that section. I thought that factors shouldered the non-payment risk but article seems to imply that non-payment would come back and bite the truckers

Yeah, I had to heavily edit the piece to ensure that it wasn't a mini-novella.

So, for more context on factoring, there are two types - recourse and non-recourse. Recourse factoring means that the factoring company can come back and ask the driver for their money back. Generally, the rates for recourse factoring are lower (by 20-50 basis points only because the default rate in drivers is quite high).

Non-recourse factoring is something that the industry is transitioning to. Most of the startups offering factoring today are doing non-recourse. The problem with that approach is that fraud rates rise exponentially. Not too sure how the landscape will look even 6 months from now as easy capital goes away.

Re: On Trucking

#82

Post by morpheos137 »

grogenaut wrote: post #65
cwalv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Driving is not a closed domain problem. There will always be fat tail circumstances where statistical methods will break down. It doesn’t have to solve all cases to be immensely useful. All it needs is to be able to recognize when it’s unable to safely have control with enough advance notice to delegate to a human. Remotely piloted aircraft have been a thing for a long time; seems like we could do the same with tru…

You can't just dump control to the person sleeping or playing marvel snap in the driver seat as your out. With aircraft there are attentive people on standby and more than one. With remote aircraft people are way less likely to die if something goes wrong. You also start really lowering the training level of humans. I'll alter one of my favorite jokes to explain. I want to go out like my Tesla ai did, in a bit of con…

Importantly with aircraft the time you have to correct an error that requires human pilot intervention before you crash is far greater than in a car. This is basic critical thinking... But so many people say we have autopilot why not driverless cars? Well obviously driverless cars are orders of magnitude more sensitive to error conditions on open roads than a plan flying in empty space.

Re: On Trucking

#83

Post by snowypine »

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…

I'm not an expert here on water transportation but I think water is very similar to rail. Both are much more cost and energy efficient. But they require large freight volumes and sacrifice a lot of the flexibility that trucking has. Unless we change our supply chain philosophy, trucking will likely reign above all other forms of transportation.

Re: On Trucking

#84

Post by SoftTalker »

kec wrote: post #63
abetusk wrote: post #41

Maybe this is a stupid question but is there any value in trying to put solar panels on the roofs of trucks to offset fuel costs? Solar panels are (new) around $0.75 / Watt and less than that used. Maybe you could fit 9 or so on the top which, depending on what panels you use, could be about a 1kW or so in sunlight. Maybe it's too much of a stretch to ask for a modified engine but heating the driver cabin or even pro…

That's a lot of extra weight for maybe 9-10kWHr of energy at most (assuming a full day of perfect summertime conditions)... One gallon of diesel fuel contains about 35kWHr of energy.

Also would not really work for many truck types: tankers, flatbeds, intermodal containers. And many trucks drive at night because traffic is lighter.

Re: On Trucking

#85

Post by LarryMullins »

Analemma_ wrote: post #68
abetusk wrote: post #41

Maybe this is a stupid question but is there any value in trying to put solar panels on the roofs of trucks to offset fuel costs? Solar panels are (new) around $0.75 / Watt and less than that used. Maybe you could fit 9 or so on the top which, depending on what panels you use, could be about a 1kW or so in sunlight. Maybe it's too much of a stretch to ask for a modified engine but heating the driver cabin or even pro…

Aren't most trucks actually hauling intermodal containers? The panels would have to be on the containers themselves, and then they could not be stacked.

Intermodal trailers are fairly common but not the majority. Most trailers are box trailers, where the enclosed "container" part is integral with the trailer chassis. Intermodal trailers are used particularly in conjunction with ports and railyards.

Re: On Trucking

#86

Post by snowypine »

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…

1 - Oh man, this was one of the questions that was asked by almost every investor. The truth is that no one really knows. My best guess is that we're a decade or more away from true self-driving. Augmented driving might be sooner but trucking is one of the biggest employers in 35 states. Truck drivers are not going to let self/augmented driving eat into their paychecks.

2 - Unfortunately, the margins are too thin for owner operators to have a vested interest in climate. I do think that an interesting distribution strategy for cleaner trucks is to sell heavily into private fleets (e.g. walmart trucking) because there's an ESG angle that the companies can buy into. As for dedicated trucking carriers, it's going to be hard to convince them unless there's some realistic return on investment.

3 - This is interesting, I haven't looked into insurance too much personally and I know the barrier to entry there is extremely high. That being said, I think the liability aspect reduces the viability of offering low-cost insurance. Most trucks are essentially houses on wheels in terms of cost and a single accident can run in the millions.

I'd imagine that if you really wanted to build an insurance company for trucking, you'd need to focus exclusively on mega-fleets (25+ truck carriers) and somehow offer them better rates than legacy insurance companies. While owner operators pay a lot in terms of insurance, the market simply isn't big enough to build a cohesive risk engine and underprice existing insurance without taking on unaccounted risk.

Re: On Trucking

#88

Post by cwalv »

morpheos137 wrote: post #82
grogenaut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just dump control to the person sleeping or playing marvel snap in the driver seat as your out. With aircraft there are attentive people on standby and more than one. With remote aircraft people are way less likely to die if something goes wrong. You also start really lowering the training level of humans. I'll alter one of my favorite jokes to explain. I want to go out like my Tesla ai did, in a bit of con…

Importantly with aircraft the time you have to correct an error that requires human pilot intervention before you crash is far greater than in a car. This is basic critical thinking... But so many people say we have autopilot why not driverless cars? Well obviously driverless cars are orders of magnitude more sensitive to error conditions on open roads than a plan flying in empty space.

I wasn't comparing autopilot in an aircraft to autopilot in a car. I was comparing remote piloting of an aircraft to remote operation of a vehicle.

Re: On Trucking

#89

Post by [deleted] »

morpheos137 wrote: post #82
grogenaut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just dump control to the person sleeping or playing marvel snap in the driver seat as your out. With aircraft there are attentive people on standby and more than one. With remote aircraft people are way less likely to die if something goes wrong. You also start really lowering the training level of humans. I'll alter one of my favorite jokes to explain. I want to go out like my Tesla ai did, in a bit of con…

Importantly with aircraft the time you have to correct an error that requires human pilot intervention before you crash is far greater than in a car. This is basic critical thinking... But so many people say we have autopilot why not driverless cars? Well obviously driverless cars are orders of magnitude more sensitive to error conditions on open roads than a plan flying in empty space.

[deleted]

Re: On Trucking

#90

Post by i_am_proteus »

Stratoscope wrote: post #33
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…

What a great article! Thank you for linking to it. I love the ambiguity of the last sentence you quoted. I won't spoil it for others; just go read the article, it's that good. Fair warning: it is long form journalism, of the best kind. Give yourself some time to savor it.

Full circle: I discovered this article after another HN commenter suggested the book Uncommon Carriers, a collection of essays including this one.
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