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Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

cnn.com

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Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#301

Post by creato »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #29
allears wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time that tariffs slow down the entire trucking industry -- truckers are gonna definitely be hurting

Not to mention the drive to remove the 10s of thousands of truck drivers that recently immigrated... E.g., https://nypost.com/2025/04/29/us-news/trump-signs-order-requ... https://truckdrivernews.com/new-arkansas-bill-could-make-non...

"Not to mention" doesn't make sense here. Everything else in this thread is talking about reducing the demand for trucking labor. Your post is talking about reducing the supply.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#302

Post by gnatolf »

nradov wrote: post #222
nicoburns wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains are as popular as ever almost everywhere in Europe.

Trains move as much freight as ever in the USA.

Not to take away from that fact, but the share of train-moved freight (over time) is more interesting. It probably highlights the complications of scaling train networks easily.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#303

Post by bgnn »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #280
sephamorr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My previous company, Parallel Systems is working on this. The solution looks a lot like trucks on rail: individual locomotion, so you get the flexibility of trucking, but the energy efficiency and automation ease of rail. With modern braking, you can stop a Parallel vehicle about as fast as a truck. There's a ton of rail that's underutilized, particularly in Metro areas, so you almost get a fresh highway for free. Ve…

I’m not seeing much rail that is under utilized out here int he west, if anything it is over subscribed. The energy savings in having one or two diesel electrics pull a long chain of cars is substantial, I get the feeling that if you just put trucks on rails you’d lose a lot of that. You also need to be more conservative with elevation changes, right of ways, and turning radiuses, so lots of tunneling and viaducting…

most of Europe north of the alps is fairly flat in elevation. Railways are oversubscribed because they are not expanded enough, defunded if you like, to expand and fund the highway network.

It is stupid to travel thousands of kilometers by trucks. It's inefficient, expensive and nit scalable. Currently we use mostly huge container ships and empty them with trucks, absolutely insane. There's quite a bit of river boat activity in Europe luckily, which is great if electrified. Though the sorry state of the railways is just human-made and not didtated by economics.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#304

Post by lukaslalinsky »

I'm really unfamiliar with autonomous cars, but how do they handle cases like constructor workers or even regular people (in case of an accident), manually handling the traffic by waving at drivers to go or stop? Are they systems smart enough to recognize these? Or is there someone on the other end, getting remote access to the vehicle if the road situation gets weird?

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#305

Post by crote »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #282
cycomanic wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger issue is that roads are immensely subsidised compared to rail. Even on private roads that are completely covered by usage charges, trucks pay maybe a factor of 2-10 more than cars, however they cause about 40000 times more wear (let's even disregard how they also cause disproportionately more traffic...). Obviously this calculation becomes even worse if we consider that most roads are subsidised by all tax…

Are you just talking about the USA? I would bet that rail in Europe and Eastern Asia is also pretty subsidized, as much as or even more so than roads.

Rather the opposite in Europe, actually.

The European rail network is strongly liberalized, starting with the First Railway Directive 91/440/EEC. The physical infrastructure now usually falls under a state-owned enterprise, which provides access to any company wanting to use it, at a fair and non-discriminatory pricing. In practice this means that the usage fees have to pay for all upkeep and maintenance, with occasional cash injections from the government for things like constructing new railway lines. Importantly, this infrastructure company is expected to either have a neutral result, or run a profit: the railway users have to pay the true costs of operating the railway.

The roads are a different story altogether. They are owned, constructed, and maintained directly by the government itself. Road upkeep comes out of the general budget - just like education or defense. Road users pay via a vehicle tax and/or fuel tax, but there is zero expectation that those taxes pay for the full cost of the road network. After all, you profit from the presence of a road network - even if you don't drive a car yourself.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#306

Post by Ygg2 »

jfengel wrote: post #185
Ygg2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why wouldn't it be? My debt is your asset, and vice versa. Tell me, what does the autonomous truck drink? Or eat? The less you pay the driver the less money does driver have to buy whatever he is carrying.

That doesn't automatically mean that the economy drops. The truck driver gets the next-least-undesirable job. That may pay almost the same, or it may not exist. It depends. It's never as simple as "we automated the job so the person is useless."

> The truck driver gets the next-least-undesirable job.

That the promise but is it the reality? Deaths of despair suggest it isn't.

Deindustrialization is an issue once you move supply chains overseas or to the robots, with it whole parts of country die. No truck drivers means less money spent on truck stops, motels (for sleep), and in their local economy (no pubs, bowling alley, etc.)

But the threat isn't just replacing drivers, it is replacing entire eco systems of jobs.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#307

Post by crote »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #299
adrr wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US is already the largest shipper of freight by train in terms of shipped tonnage and also total tracks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transportation_in_the_Uni...

Not a very interesting data point since it doesn’t account for nation area, utilization, etc.

Don't forget geography, and by extension type of freight.

The United States doesn't have a lot of navigable waterways, and none go east-west. This means that any bulk goods you want to transport have to go via rail. There is no other option. As a result the railway network has been optimized to do bulk transport at the lowest price possible, even if it means sacrificing speed and quality. After all, coal doesn't care if it sits in a siding for several days.

It's true that the US is shipping an awful lot of tonnes via rail, but this doesn't say anything about its ability to ship regular goods. Getting a single wagon from point to point in a timely manner is significantly more complicated than doing the same with an entire train.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#308

Post by bgnn »

bee_rider wrote: post #289
derektank wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't we almost see a national rail strike 2 years ago? It seems like reducing that risk would be an incentive enough to make the transition, even if overall costs are low.

Automating the conductor job doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be anybody around to strike, I think.

This. Most of the jobs are in infrastructure and servicing (loading, maintenance etc). Those are using as much automatization as possible already.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#310

Post by tasuki »

bdbenton5255 wrote: post #254

I remember reading an online study that listed the jobs most likely to be replaced by automation and "truck driver" was listed at the top. For the keen eye, automation creates new jobs as it replaces others. Someone has to design, implement, and maintain these systems. There is always a higher level of abstraction where a human being is needed to oversee things.

> There is always a higher level of abstraction where a human being is needed to oversee things.

These become progressively more difficult jobs. Not likely the truck drivers who find themselves out of job will implement these systems.

I can already see the LLMs becoming better at computer programming than I am: they're good at the very high level, and they're good at implementing any self contained function. What's left for me is the glue code, creating the API, deciding which functions should be exposed... Soon, I won't be needed either!

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