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This is why many people believe self-driving trucks will be even more significant than self-driving cars. Especially as we start to commute less as telepresence
by kylemathews 11y ago
This is why many people believe self-driving trucks will be even more significant than self-driving cars. Especially as we start to commute less as telepresence improves and more jobs can go remote.
- jessaustin 11y agoOK, just as long as trucks aren't driven through telepresence. Drone operators in the trucking industry might challenge their military brethren in terms of innocent people killed.
- rectang 11y agoIf trucks were operated as drones, wouldn't that make managing hours and handing off from one driver to another much easier?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- stevewepay 11y agoI think drones will leapfrog over self-driving trucks. Why even bother having things that drive on roads when you could fly them directly to a warehouse, over hills, forests, rivers, etc?
- maxerickson 11y agoI expect ground vehicles win on energy even if you roll in the roads.
- stevewepay 11y agoI don't think energy is the driving factor. There are a lot more technical challenges associated with self-driving cars than self-driving drones. Self-driving cars aren't even fully solved at this point. However, even very cheap hobby drones can accurately fly to specific GPS coordinates. Even most plane flights are auto-piloted and even auto-land, so I believe that drones are a lot closer in terms of implementation than self-driving cars. If there is a business case that determines that drones, while being potentially more energy-intensive, can save a company money due to speed, I believe it will win. For example, imagine Amazon could redistribute inventory between two warehouses with a click of a button and overnight, that sounds like a definite competitive advantage to me.
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- maxerickson 11y agoI would expect trucks with drivers to continue to beat drones on cost for a long time, a single trailer load is at least hundreds of drone trips, maybe thousands.
- stevewepay 11y agoThe comparison was between self-driving trucks vs drones, not human-driven trucks vs drones. Obviously those are going to be cheaper than whatever current technology we have. And there's nothing preventing drones on the rough order of magnitude of trailers from flying around, as long as it's done in a safe and regulated way.