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Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

kevinchen.co

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Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#61

Post by nine_k »

ta8903 wrote: post #31
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #13

"Now let’s compare these distances with the capabilities of various sensors:" Many cars monitor rotational speed of the tires in order to determine whether a wheel is slipping. A Model 3 can detect whether a tire is new or old based on tread depth, something I learned the hard way. If trucks were outfitted with rotational encoders on all tires, 'slipperiness' could be monitored periodically by, for example, tapping b…

>trucks run in fleets and on routes Makes me wonder if it would be more efficient to run trucks as "convoys", maybe consisting of competing companies along predetermined routes. And you could have an ultralight canary car go an appropriate distance along the front to ensure that in the worse case, it is the one that crashes.

You can even operate a small winged drone that would watch the conditions ahead of a convoy from a reasonable height, easily a few km ahead if needed.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#62

Post by crote »

RockyMcNuts wrote: post #57

I feel like a truck convoy of 10 trucks with one or two humans in the first truck (or first and last) and getting alerts seems more doable.

That would essentially be a virtual road train. It's a great solution because you can reduce the distance between the trucks, which improves the fuel efficiency - especially for European-style trucks.

The problem is that they are an absolute nightmare when it comes to highway merging. You really don't want third-parties in-between elements of the convoy, so it essentially becomes a single really long vehicle for merging purposes. On most highways that's simply not a realistic option.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#63

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Edman274 wrote: post #26

I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is hig…

> we wouldn't allow someone to be an Uber or Lyft or truck driver if they were candid and said "I'm going to text on my phone, and be drunk driving and sleepy and distracted as often as the average motorist"

Half the taxi and Uber drivers in New York are perpetually on a phone call, and frequently interacting with their phones.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#64

Post by marssaxman »

tsimionescu wrote: post #43
hutzlibu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine all those cyclists and pedestrians would also drive a car, would also be on the road at the same time. You think driving would be less stressfull then?

In my expeirence, it is far more common for cyclists to break traffic rules than it is for cars to do so. Even pedestrians are far more likely to cross on a red light than cars, for example. The vast majority of humans have some respect for the fact that they are in charge of a ton or more of hulking metal when driving a car, and thus take on more responsibility. Drinking and driving is far less common than drinking…

It depends on which traffic rules you are watching for. Car drivers are vastly more likely to break speed limit rules than bike riders are; in fact it's a minority of drivers I see who don't break speed limit rules (which leaves me wondering why they are still considered to be rules at all, in a supposedly democratic society; but that's another conversation) while it's a rare bike rider who is even capable of the athletics necessary to do so.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#65

Post by sleepybrett »

michaelgiba wrote: post #12

I think there are some good points here but IMHO this is overly focused on flawless 100% of the time L5 autonomy. Many autonomous trucking companies can become economically viable without perfection because 1. They aren’t dealing with consumers directly 2. Can control or focus on specific well understood shipping lanes 3. Can provide more human in the loop assistance for tricky situations. In this way trucking is eas…

you are describing trains. you've just reinvented the freight train.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#66

Post by nine_k »

linkjuice4all wrote: post #7
jmspring wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article calls out the challenge of stopping distance and sensing range. Drive Hwy80 over the Sierra Nevada mountains in winter, stopping, predictability, many other factors come up as well.

I know that “just put it on a freight train” doesn’t solve every logistics problem but it does kind of address this one. Maybe their solution should be focused on improving transloading between truck and train and using autonomous trucking to solve the “last mile(s)” problem for trains.

The US have a well-developed and really busy network of freight trains. Trains already carry a lot of stuff that's economical to carry by train, especially bulk goods.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#67

Post by sleepybrett »

creer wrote: post #20

This is strange. - Sensing distance is a good one for sure. At the same time, it's for now a technical issue. So that a viable temporary progress-making solution might be to have an additional vehicle in the autonomous system: a sensing car is in front, and one or more semi-trucks follow. Then the autonomous system far out-senses a human driver. And we get progress even if the cost-proposition becomes a little harder…

> Will trucks happen before cars? Well, cars are already there so... already answered.

Cars are not 'there'.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#68

Post by Mashimo »

nativeit wrote: post #58
nativeit wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaaaand we’re back to reinventing trains. There should be a name for this phenomenon. How long do tech folks discuss how to improve transportation until they attempt to reinvent trains?

Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be much more logical to automate trains first?

City trains are often automated[1]. Have been for decades as far as I know.

Long distance or regional trains are often driving on very very old train networks.

I don't know much about trains, but I guess if you would build a new train line now you could also automate it. But that is just a guess.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_driverless_train_syste...

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#69

Post by Havoc »

Yes trucks slow down slower than cars but that's just physics. You've got the exact same problem with humans driving under say rainy or foggy conditions.

If anything driverless helps dramatically on this front. If you can run trucks 24/7 without stopping then you can cut their speed say 33% or whatever and still come out on top.

You can also adjust the cargo to reduce stopping distance - use autonomous truckers for things that are large but not heavy.

Or hell even just add more wheels for more stopping traction. Sure gets you more wear & tear but that's an infinitely easier problem than trying to teach an AI to recognise a kid running into the road in a busy urban steet or navigate construction site or whatever other surprises come up.

Author makes some valid points - stopping distance vs sensor range - but to me the conclusion that trucking on highways is hardest doesn't follow at all.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#70

Post by JumpCrisscross »

nativeit wrote: post #55
lvl102 wrote: post #41

We need smart roads. Not just smart cars. Until that happens, autonomous is impractical. You don’t want to build an autonomous system to match human error rate. That basically got us nowhere in the past seven years since Elon bs’d his way to selling vaporware.

Aaaaand we’re back to reinventing trains. There should be a name for this phenomenon. How long do tech folks discuss how to improve transportation until they attempt to reinvent trains?

> we’re back to reinventing trains

The term you’re looking for is armchair logistics.

Trains and trucks have been competing for a long time. Autonomous trucks, even in convoys, even where freeways have RFID signs, are vastly different from trains. You don’t need to lay and maintain tracks. You’re not limited to where tracks go. You can assemble and disassemble on demand.

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