131–140 of 363 posts
They can find enough drivers, but won’t pay them enough or give them any dignity. The industry has a 90% turnover rate per year. So obviously they are finding drivers all the time…they just don’t keep them.
hitchhikers, stowaways, and truck parts thieves will thank you.
Looks like there will be a vehicle (manned of course) following the trucks at this time (the same way oversized cargo/load moves today).
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…
> A "drivered" lead truck is leading one or more driverless trucks in this case My bet is this goes nowhere. It’s a horseless carriage that doesn’t have enough time to pay itself back versus fully-automated platoons with remote back-up.
The teamsters, the CDL mills, the driver trade groups, all the people who've joined hands with the hand wringing types to prevent modernization of our trucking regulations will see the writing on the wall, pull out all the stops, lobby to allow human steering wheel holders to work to their full potential and full automation will stagnate for 20+yr while tech is instead deployed to solve other nuisance problems that limit truck sizes and productivity.
Autonomous trucks will be fantastic. Truckers are compelled to work without sleep to finish routes with tight deadlines. It creates a lot of danger on the highway. It feels like autonomous vehicles could become one of America's superpowers. We have so many miles of road and interstate highway. Autonomous vehicles could double down on that strength and flip the underinvestment in passenger rail on its head, making it…
That's even assuming this is actually remotely profitable compared to just using humans. Like a lot of this sort of automation it probably isn't, and it's true purpose is to be used as a threat against workers so they'll be even more "compelled to work without sleep to finish routes with tight deadlines"
Autonomous trucks will be fantastic. Truckers are compelled to work without sleep to finish routes with tight deadlines. It creates a lot of danger on the highway. It feels like autonomous vehicles could become one of America's superpowers. We have so many miles of road and interstate highway. Autonomous vehicles could double down on that strength and flip the underinvestment in passenger rail on its head, making it…
So instead of improve their conditions we just fire them? Sure that won't have any negative repercussions... That's even assuming this is actually remotely profitable compared to just using humans. Like a lot of this sort of automation it probably isn't, and it's true purpose is to be used as a threat against workers so they'll be even more "compelled to work without sleep to finish routes with tight deadlines"
Why wouldn't it be?
> instead of improve their conditions
I wouldn't want to drive a truck. To be frank, I really don't want to answer Jira tickets and write plumbing code either. I sincerely hope that none of what most of us do today has to be a job in fifty years.
> help bolster a critical sector of the American economy, which often can't find enough drivers. They can find enough drivers, but won’t pay them enough or give them any dignity. The industry has a 90% turnover rate per year. So obviously they are finding drivers all the time…they just don’t keep them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
next level would be to hook these "platoons" together physically and then centralize the propulsion in a super efficient package. And then we could move them off the highways and onto specialized "tracks" that guarantee they don't deviate from the planned routes. speculative, alien technology, admittedly, but some day our scientists will figure it out i bet!
The problem with railroad is exactly the other side of this: that you can't trivially and automatically detach a single car at any point. I know businesses that literally have an old railroad branch line right up to their door, but they can't actually order anything meaningful via rail. The existing rail system has at least the following constraints: * Uses steel-on-steel friction, rather than rubber-on-rock. Cars th…
Because companies have invested in JIT because low cost of trucking, an industry which is heavily subsidized (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/50049), allows it.
If trucking costs reflected their true cost, railroad would look a ton more attractive along with not doing JIT.
Autonomous trucks will be fantastic. Truckers are compelled to work without sleep to finish routes with tight deadlines. It creates a lot of danger on the highway. It feels like autonomous vehicles could become one of America's superpowers. We have so many miles of road and interstate highway. Autonomous vehicles could double down on that strength and flip the underinvestment in passenger rail on its head, making it…
So instead of improve their conditions we just fire them? Sure that won't have any negative repercussions... That's even assuming this is actually remotely profitable compared to just using humans. Like a lot of this sort of automation it probably isn't, and it's true purpose is to be used as a threat against workers so they'll be even more "compelled to work without sleep to finish routes with tight deadlines"
Say I’m building a company to ship self-driving trucks. I need hundreds of millions, maybe billions in capital.
I need to line up purchasers. My fixed costs are huge and marginal lower, so I need volume.
How, exactly, am I thinking about “threatening” existing drivers so they work longer hours and break more laws?
In America, we are willing to do anything to avoid expanding or upgrading our rail infrastructure.
The biggest problems with American rail infrastructure are related to passenger service. The US has one of the largest freight rail systems in the world by whatever metric you want to use: total miles (#1), annual tonnage (#2), ton mileage (#3) or modal share (#7). In any case, semis occupy a largely separate mode of transportation that aren't cost competitive with freight rail where it's viable. Autonomous semis are…
Which are regulatory more than technical at this point and could change overnight.
Obviously drivers need to sleep but the tech to make doubles and perhaps even triples workable exists but isn't worth deploying because our regulations are stuck in 1980.
Autonomous trucks will be fantastic. Truckers are compelled to work without sleep to finish routes with tight deadlines. It creates a lot of danger on the highway. It feels like autonomous vehicles could become one of America's superpowers. We have so many miles of road and interstate highway. Autonomous vehicles could double down on that strength and flip the underinvestment in passenger rail on its head, making it…
So instead of improve their conditions we just fire them? Sure that won't have any negative repercussions... That's even assuming this is actually remotely profitable compared to just using humans. Like a lot of this sort of automation it probably isn't, and it's true purpose is to be used as a threat against workers so they'll be even more "compelled to work without sleep to finish routes with tight deadlines"
I think it’s “funny” how corporate leaders in basically every industry are enthusiastically barreling toward a world in which they have no employed customers to buy their products created by their automated robot workforce.
Nobody in politics is coming close to addressing the societal problems that are incoming in the near future.