31–40 of 363 posts
It's good they're doing this first in a place that doesn't get long term snow accumulation on roads. But eventually there should be autonomous vehicle tests in places with non-cherry picked road conditions.
A "drivered" lead truck is leading one or more driverless trucks in this case.
I drive the stretch of highway these trucks are on fairly regularly. I don't know that I've seen a group of them yet but I'm keeping my eye out.
I'm probably just showing my age, but I like the idea of a "drivered" truck leading driverless trucks versus a completely autonomous system. It's similar to my attitude on crewed spaceflight-- I like the idea of the ingenuity and capacity for independent thought supervising an automated systems, versus autonomous automated systems.
Tangent Reminds me of this (automated systems still doing their thing after humans are gone) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhRapsbwhqE
I feel like the ideal scenario would be to prioritize self driving truck at set times and set long haul freeways (i.e. Long Beach to Las Vegas or Galveston to Dallas) during the night time when there is no regular auto traffic - for example from 1 am-6 am. That way if a human driver is concerned, they can choose not to drive during this period of time. Perhaps run the trucks in a train style configuration where a "co…
The only difference is how maintenance of the route is paid for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doubtful. The trucking industry has been screaming for years that they can’t find enough people, almost every 18-wheeler I see on the highway has a “we’re hiring” ad on it, and so on. This is automation coming in to replace humans who are willfully exiting.
They are hiring, but the reason they can't find people isn't because there aren't people out there willing to do the job if it's fairly compensated. The problem is that trucking has lost a ton of upside over the last few decades, particularly after the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. Drivers are often paid per mile instead of per hour, which means long unpaid periods waiting for loads or stuck in traffic.
There's also a trial of "platooning" of driverless trucks on I-70 in Ohio and Indiana: https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbishop1/2025/04/24/ease-... A "drivered" lead truck is leading one or more driverless trucks in this case. I drive the stretch of highway these trucks are on fairly regularly. I don't know that I've seen a group of them yet but I'm keeping my eye out. I'm probably just showing my age, but I like…
I think they both have their place, but I think acknowledging it as a system design choice is so helpful even in basic business processes (how will I handle exceptions, how will the person remember to handle a rare exception).
I find myself thinking of this problem frequently. We have lots of modern words for it like observability but I think that removes one a bit from the actual problem.
I feel like the ideal scenario would be to prioritize self driving truck at set times and set long haul freeways (i.e. Long Beach to Las Vegas or Galveston to Dallas) during the night time when there is no regular auto traffic - for example from 1 am-6 am. That way if a human driver is concerned, they can choose not to drive during this period of time. Perhaps run the trucks in a train style configuration where a "co…
There's also a trial of "platooning" of driverless trucks on I-70 in Ohio and Indiana: https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbishop1/2025/04/24/ease-... A "drivered" lead truck is leading one or more driverless trucks in this case. I drive the stretch of highway these trucks are on fairly regularly. I don't know that I've seen a group of them yet but I'm keeping my eye out. I'm probably just showing my age, but I like…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not how any of this works. Automation like FSD will lead to cheaper shipping costs via trucks leading to more Trucks on the road and more needing to load/unload and manage last mile logistics and driving routes that can't be automated resulting in ... more trucking jobs, more loading/unloading jobs, more FSD operations jobs, more truck repair jobs, more software engineering jobs
This reminds me of how ATMs created more banking jobs because people started to use the bank more along with ATMs. ATMs handled the simple transactions and tellers dealt with the more complex tasks. We'll see. There will be a loss of little industries that depended on truckers though, like truck stops and inns. I also hope that this results in more jobs that are fulfilling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are hiring, but the reason they can't find people isn't because there aren't people out there willing to do the job if it's fairly compensated. The problem is that trucking has lost a ton of upside over the last few decades, particularly after the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. Drivers are often paid per mile instead of per hour, which means long unpaid periods waiting for loads or stuck in traffic.
So as usual, "we can't find people" is code for "we tried to exploit the workers until they bled and for some reason we can't figure out, they went elsewhere."