Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes • Hacker News Board

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#341

Post by nradov » Sat, May 03, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

wombatpm wrote: post #260

EvanAnderson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there's an aerodynamic advantage to the platoons. Placing an autonomous truck in the lead of one of these platoons, down the road, seems like a reasonable "upgrade" strategy.

If we can fly a drone halfway across the world, why can’t we have human augmentation for self driving trucks. Have a human, rested, and alert monitoring several platoons back at HQ. The only reason you want a person on the train is security and paperwork.

We can't reliably fly a drone halfway across the world. The mishap rates for remote piloted aircraft are terrible compared to similar manned aircraft. And for trucks, we can't even get fast, reliable cellular or satellite data on a lot of roads (including tunnels).

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#342

Post by readthenotes1 » Sat, May 03, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

creato wrote: post #301

readthenotes1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"truckers are definitely going to be hurting"

Far fewer of them will be truckers

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#343

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 03, 2025, 8:04 PM UTC

achierius wrote: post #241

mulmen wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These trucks are already covered in cameras. The self driving ones even more. How does this highway robbery even work? You force the autonomous truck to stop, take an angle grinder to the doors, then... unpack all the crates and boxes and hope you find something good that's also small enough to get away with? it just doesn't pass the sniff test for me.

Huh? Why not? That sounds exactly like what I would expect to happen. Show up with a stolen truck (or cover the license plates), track down some truck on a route between cities, pop it open and see what you get. If it's good, pile it in the truck and drive off. As to why that doesn't happen now? If you try to rob a piloted truck in the middle of nowhere, whether or not you plan on hurting the guy, he's going to fear…

[deleted]

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#344

Post by mikrotikker » Sat, May 03, 2025, 10:14 PM UTC

vlan0 wrote: post #177

callc wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. Since human lives are at stake, it is fair to have an extremely high bar for safety.

It's an interesting bar to set. And it shows how we're willing to bend that safety bar to allow seniors to drive on the roads despite their clear cognitive disadvantage. Let's look at some raw data. Mind you, we have 100x more data for the human drivers below. ie, billions of miles vs millions for automated drivers. Pop examined Fatal-crash rate All Level‑4 automated‑driving tests in the U.S. 1.5–1.7 per 100 M mi Dri…

I'd rather be driven by any human driver than a machine that has no empathy, can't be reasoned with, can't be bargained with, and is under control of a faceless corporation.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

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Post by spwa4 » Sat, May 03, 2025, 10:25 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #328

crote wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 occasi…

France has fairly high tolls on roads and Switzerland has that sticker you have to buy to use the expressways. Japanese rail companies must get some sort of subsidy on tracks, the passenger rail system runs at a loss and only turns a profit on renting space in train stations. Roads are also heavily tolled (similar in China).

> France has fairly high tolls on roads and Switzerland has that sticker you have to buy to use the expressways.

France has tolls, which pay for 90 roads (granted, big ones), out of thousands.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#346

Post by jontorrey » Sun, May 04, 2025, 12:18 AM UTC

ortusdux wrote: post #198

Is anyone working on an electric truck system where the battery is on the trailer? Many businesses are constantly rotating the same dry van trailers between hubs. If you charged the trailers at the doc during loading/unloading, the rigs could run 24/7, only stopping to swap trailers.

Range Energy.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#347

Post by jontorrey » Sun, May 04, 2025, 1:34 AM UTC

lukaslalinsky wrote: post #304

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?

For some video footage: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1cmr4tn/wa...

Waymo has a bunch of examples of dealing with off nominal pedestrian, emergency personnel, and construction.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#348

Post by mmooss » Sun, May 04, 2025, 2:54 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #325

mmooss wrote: post #196

Is that what the public wants? I suspect that if the public was aware, the verdict would be clear.

In the recent HN on Waymo non drivers seem pretty happy with them being safer than human drivers. I imagine there could be similar benefits with autonomous trucks. Also in the UK they make the motorways very crowded. If some autonomous stuff could go overnight when the roads are empty that could help.

HN is not a representative sample of the public. Also, driving for personal needs has a different set of motivations - one that people tend to trust more - than a corporation driving for profit.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#349

Post by mmooss » Sun, May 04, 2025, 2:55 AM UTC

joshgachnang wrote: post #201

mmooss wrote: post #196

Is that what the public wants? I suspect that if the public was aware, the verdict would be clear.

Presumably cheaper (long term) shipping costs leading to cheaper goods overall? Fewer sleepy truck drivers on the road? Yes, I think the public would want that.

You're making arguments, but that's not the issue. I don't think the public wants trucks without drivers.

Re: Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes

#350

Post by kerkeslager » Sun, May 04, 2025, 4:22 AM UTC

potato3732842 wrote: post #320

kerkeslager wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a bunch of rules governing how many hours truckers can work. True! > And those regulations are mostly followed. Very false, at least as of 5 years ago. I worked with trucker biometric data which for a large company which runs trucks all over North America. The company itself keeps its hands clean: they required drivers to keep strict manual logs and have strict rules about compliance with regulation. But at…

The E-log requirement all but eliminates drivers cooking the books. The book cooking happens when the company hires a sketchy firm out of eastern europe to provide the software who then cook the books on the back end. These carriers are a small minority (lest they become juicy targets for enforcement) and have high turnover.

As I said in the post you are responding to:

> [T]hese logs aren't checked unless something goes wrong, at which point the company can use to show the trucker was in violation of their stated policies to reduce liability.

This doesn't prevent truckers violating policy in any way--truckers simply accept the risk that E-logs will be checked, because most of the time they won't be. And the companies are happy to not check the E-logs, because they get both faster deliveries and plausible deniability.