18 ms·

Uber self-driving trucks are now moving cargo for Uber Freight customers

365 points by wil_wheat_on 9y ago

heisenbit 9y ago
> Uber has a video depicting this journey, which took place staring in then midwest and then via short haul to Sanders, Arizona, where it was loaded onto an autonomous truck and then transferred to Topock, Arizona, where it made the switch to another human-driven vehicle. This is a big step towards commercialization of Uber’s autonomous truck tech, and it seems like it puts it ahead of some competitors who want to do similar things, including Embark trucking. It’s also the first we’ve heard about Uber’s self-driving truck business in a little while, so it’s good to see Uber’s continuing to make progress and devote attention to this issue. Uber's main line of business i.e. on demand car transportation is loosing money. They tell a story that they fix it with self driving cars which incidentally would require gigantic additional funding. Now they have expanded into self driving trucks that do already some services with some capacity in the name of their own surely significant trucking business for some customers that call for them through their app. This is the real deal, I know because there is a video. Musk heaps one money loosing business over the other but at least they all make sense and are different. With Uber it was doubling down and now tripling down. Not impressed.
PeterMikhailov 9y ago
yay the future is here https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gv3vvx/logan-subtly-predicts-our-gritty-future-of-climate-change-and-big-agriculture https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gv3vvx/logan-subt...
ryannevius 9y ago
I don't mean to be a downer...but is there really anything novel here? I understand that this is a first step, but I feel like Uber could have significantly reduced the manual labor required (e.g. to disconnect/connect a trailer). It seems that the load (mental/physical) on the "driver" of the self-driving semi will be nearly equal to a driver who has cruise control.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mav3r1ck 9y ago
  You’re right it’s not that novel. Volvo has self-driving* truck convoys going back to the 90s I think. I think for long-haul trucking it’s certainly pretty hard to stay fully tuned while driving for such long times. And for truck companies, they can save tons of money on labor when they don’t have to pay the driver for the hours on the road and just for the manual disconnect/connect docking. Maybe they can make it fully automated, but why haven’t any trucks done that already? It’s an easier problem to solve than self-driving. * by convoy, I mean that one truck up front was driven by a human and then a few were automated to draft from directly behind to just follow the truck in front of them. EDIT: Here's a source for the 90s, where this paper had a few authors from Volvo. from: http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/ITFVHA15/ITFVHA15_USA_FutureTruck_ADP_TF_WhitePaper_Draft_Final_TF_Approved_Sept_2015.pdf http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/ITFVHA15/... >Additionally, different applications of automated driving for trucks have been demonstrated across the globe since the 1990’s. The focus has been on proof of concept for truck platooning due to the foreseen fuel economy and traffic flow benefits.
  - roryisok 9y ago
    Since the 90s?? That's very impressive if true. I remember reading about a proposition to do this for cars years ago, before any talk of self driving vehicles. A car would lock in behind a professional driver vehicle such as a truck or bus and match the turning and braking. I didn't think the tech existed though
    - rmattes 9y ago
      The 90s wasn't exactly the stone age, there was plenty of self-driving vehicle work taking place. For example: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-national-automated-highway-system-that-almost-was-63027245/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-national-automate...
    - mav3r1ck 9y ago
nickpeterson 9y ago
I think these companies (autonomous car/truck) understand that they need to transition these processes slowly over time. I feel like it's better to start with something only moderately different and iterate than try to completely reinvent the entire structure of such a large industry. First they do this, then they automate more and more portions, at each step reducing the amount of manual, human supervision. It also allows the industry to more consciously reduce numbers through attrition rather than mass layoffs. Better to stop young guys from becoming truck drivers and have the automation increase over 10-15 years until it just really isn't a career. The only people that will be affected are in the 25-35 age range now who have already taken the plunge, but at least they get some time to consider other options.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > I think these companies (autonomous car/truck) understand that they need to transition these processes slowly over time. They understand pretty well that they need to transition faster than their competition. Given that, they'll do it as slow as their competitors allow, because it's investment and they don't like doing that quickly. How fast that means is anybody's guess. But they can't just stop and wait.
- nixgeek 9y ago
  This is a woefully optimistic viewpoint: when the technology is ready there will be layoffs. IMO. These companies aren’t slow-playing their hand to avoid layoffs, and it’s a race to see who can perfect the technology first.
  - nickpeterson 9y ago
    No doubt, but I think it's just the nature of complex systems. You could invent a drug that cures all diseases and maladies, and there would still be practicing doctors for 5-10 years while the cost/distribution/red-tape was worked out.
nopinsight 9y ago
For those concerned with jobs to be eliminated, it might not be as big a problem as we think for the trucking industry. "Over the next 10 years, he said, we need to attract almost 900,000 new people to the industry. Demographics is a big part of the problem. ATA’s research arm, the American Transportation Research Institute, recently updated its demographic data on drivers and found some 57% of drivers are 45 or older. Only 4.4% are 20-24 years old, noted Rebecca Brewster, president and COO of ATRI." http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/drivers/news/story/2017/10/driver-shortage-could-hit-all-time-high-this-year.aspx http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/drivers/news/story/2017/... In addition, there will still be much need for humans to take care of the maintenance of the trucks and manipulation of the cargo over the next couple decades. So there will likely be a significant number of truckers still employed, perhaps with increased productivity. Also, certain other jobs will create large increases in demand for labor over the upcoming decades, in particular home care for the elderly and, if we get politics right, better & more individualized education for the young. (A reminder) Lump of labor fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy --- Added in response to some comments below: Yes, there will be challenges particularly regarding the distribution of benefits from increased productivity. The share of wealth garnered to capital holders will likely increase. People in labor force who have the skills to develop and maintain automation systems will certainly benefit. (That is why education and (re)training are crucial.) The rest may enjoy some, but probably not most, of the larger pie created by advanced technology. However, the economic pie will be enlarged and there will be more to share. How the fruits of technology will be distributed will depend to a large extent on negotiations and politics.
- nitwit005 9y ago
  > "Over the next 10 years, he said, we need to attract almost 900,000 new people to the industry. The pay of truckers has, in inflation adjusted terms, shrunk by more than half since the 80s. They mostly need to bring in more people because their turnover is ridiculous.
- wongarsu 9y ago
  >some 57% of drivers are 45 or older. Only 4.4% are 20-24 years old For reference: Assuming a driver starts working at age 18 and retires at age 65, and given equal distribution of workers over all ages, you would expect 42% of workers to be 45 or older, and 10% of workers to be 20-24 years old (if you assume 21-70, then 51% should be 45 or older). Just in case anybody else was wondering what those numbers mean. As an aside, this projection from the same presenation looks slightly suspicious: http://www.truckinginfo.com/fc_images/news/l-driverturnover-ata2017.jpg http://www.truckinginfo.com/fc_images/news/l-driverturnover-...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
vmateixeira 9y ago
I would be interested to know how would these autonomous cars/trucks behave on non-linear roads, with potholes, adverse conditions, etc What kind of problem are these companies trying to address that hasn't been addressed yet? Will these trucks be a replacement for trains? I can see the later ones being way more easy to automate (e.g. London Overground)
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  That’s probably why Arizona is the test bed right now. Predictable weather patterns, long stretches of flat, open roads, low traffic, and legislative openness. optimizing 80/20
- bdamm 9y ago
  I'd expect they'll make potholes much worse, with all trucks driving exactly over the same spot repeatedly, until they learn to avoid the pothole. Perhaps Waze-style reporting will fill the gap.
  - allannienhuis 9y ago
    Don't you think they'd be able to take that into account with the software? Large trucks already put a huge amount of wear like that on highways (I've seen plenty of ruts from trucks in asphalt roads). Technology like this is an opportunity to actually improve the wear patterns.
    - freeflight 9y ago
      Without wanting to sound too cynical: Why would a private company care about the wear patterns of public highways? Unless it's affecting the operation of their fleet, in a negative way, they don't have any reason at all to improve anything about it. Especially considering how this does not look like a trivial problem to solve. Wouldn't something like this require an additional sensor suite to check for more detailed road conditions? What about the future, when other companies start doing the same, wouldn't that require some level of cross-company cooperation to make sure trucks take somewhat randomized lines on the street, to reduce wear?
bluetwo 9y ago
I feel like they re-invented the train. :-)
- julbaxter 9y ago
  Without the rails.
  - mtgx 9y ago
    Will Uber pay a bigger portion of the road repair taxes? Especially considering truckers already pay a disproportionately lower tax compared to the impact they have on the roads.
    - lambda_lover 9y ago
      Do they? I mean, trucks are hardly gas efficient, and aren't most roads maintained (supposedly) via gas taxes? The question, I suppose, is how much harder they are on the roads relative to their fuel efficiency.
      - lsy 9y ago
        Fuel efficiency decreases generally relative to the surface area of the front of the vehicle, where road damage increases with the mass of the vehicle. So a long, heavy vehicle like a truck is indeed harder on the road relative to their fuel efficiency.
        andechs 9y ago
        > road damage increases with the mass Road damage actually increases proportional to mass^4 - trucks cause exponentially more damage than cars. https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/ https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...
      - panopticon 9y ago
        > I mean, trucks are hardly gas efficient, and aren't most roads maintained (supposedly) via gas taxes? The gas tax hasn't been increased since 1993 and accounts for less than half of road funding.
TorKlingberg 9y ago
I assume these self-driving trucks still have a human driver in them. So, which exact parts are self-driving? Is it like Tesla's autopilot where it does lane following, cruise control and keeping the distance on highways?
- petra 9y ago
  It's not self driving. But it may be One of the first places that get paid real money(lets say UBER'S commission) for testing self-driving.
- olyjohn 9y ago
  It's just adaptive cruise and lane keeping. Just like trucks already have now. The headlines to attract clicks on these are so infuriating...
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  > So, which exact parts are self-driving? Just enough of it that they can skirt the DOT hour rules about hours worked while still blaming the driver for any crashes or tickets would be my guess. That's the obvious lowest hanging fruit as far as trucking is concerned. If you can automate enough of the long haul grind that the driver could possibly be sleeping then you have a massive competitive advantage over everyone else. If you don't automate enough to be able to skirt the DOT time rules there's not much of a competitive advantage.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I don't think you can skirt them. Time on-duty counts against their daily limit even if they're not driving (the example given in an official guide is a trucker taking a bus to get to the truck), so they must still get a proper rest afterwards. So Uber can't count the "not driving but watching the road" as time off.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      They're not going to be on duty. They're going to be sleeping in the sleeper, on paper at least.
lonelyw0lf 9y ago
The video ad is so crazy -- we still need a human to lock/unlock the cargo?? and its good for the truckers because they can go home early to their family?? The first part can be trivially automated and the second is just stupid. Truckers get paid per hour of work, less work == less money. AI-self-driving has arrived but to make the transition look "humane" as in the AD is crazy. Almost insults the intelligence of these guys who have been driving our cargo around for whole generations.
- ShabbosGoy 9y ago
  I think it will be some time before the big shipping players all decide to switch to self-driving trucks. We’re still a decade away from complete vehicular automation. > The first part can be trivially automated and the second is just stupid. Truckers get paid per hour of work, less work == less money. You could always pay them a salary and benefits, and hopefully UBI would exist at that point. Of course it’s unlikely for Uber to do that, because their strategy has been the exact opposite.
- inverse_pi 9y ago
  hmm, Im not an expert but isn't your logic based on constant supply/demand? Once self driving trucks become mainstream could it be that truckers will do fewer long trips but more shorter trips which doesn't necessarily lower their income?
- djrogers 9y ago
  Truckers generally get paid per mile, not per hour. They are also heavily regulated as to the number of hours they can drive (why you see so many husband/wife driving teams). One can easily foresee a future where a self-driving truck has a driver in it who is only driving 'regulated' hours for a small portion of a trip (say during high traffic, highway entry/exit, etc). The driver could spend the rest of his time sleeping, reading, or coding - he'd basically be a passenger. If a truck can haul for 20-30 hours without stopping for overnights, that dramatically changes the economies of fast freight.
  - BurningFrog 9y ago
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
I am not sure that I want a company that is most famous for breaking rules, skirting regulation, and stealing medical records of it's victims operating large freight trucks on public roads.
- megy 9y ago
  This is a good point, but it can no way be worse than what we have now.
natch 9y ago
Notice that you can extend this model to passengers and long-haul bus, train, or simply self-driven vehicle transport, in all of which cases Uber is well positioned.
mmazing 9y ago
Should be a fun day when people realize they can pretty easily hijack automated trucks. I assume you could either get in the back of the thing while it's moving, or simply slow down in front of it and cause it to stop. Unload your newly acquired goods and be on your way!
- JackFr 9y ago
  What makes you think they would be easier to hijack? Part of the ease of hijacking truck is that you can drive off with it. What if the trailer locks its wheels and bricks itself, if it determines it's being hijacked, all while recording 360 video and sending immediate alerts to management and law enforcement? Certainly better than a driver afraid for his life.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Think burglary vs home invasion. It's not just about easier, it's about it being a different threshold for whether it's worth it. The presence of other people drastically complicates crimes, and makes it much more likely that you'll end up dead or in prison for decades. Also, all the countermeasures you mention aren't free or without issues, and could be in place now, but aren't. Why not?
    - Kalium 9y ago
      In general, the real bottleneck with theft at scale isn't the actual theft. It's turning the stolen goods into money afterwards and disposing of the evidence. Items being slightly easier to steal doesn't do much to make them easier to fence.
- Johnny555 9y ago
  Can't you use the same strategy for human driven trucks? Except that the human driver is a lot less likely to be uploading a live video stream back to the corporate office.
- amclennon 9y ago
  Assuming the truck driver isn't heavily armed or willing to endanger themselves by wrecking an 18 wheeler, there's nothing really stopping anyone from doing that today. You seem to be working under the assumption the nobody has ever hijacked truck up to this point, and that for whatever reason self driving trucks would be left unlocked with no security mechanisms in place whatsoever.
ktpsns 9y ago
The funny thing in this US-centric view is that we have such a cargo since a century where trains play the role of "self-driving cargo". In europe, the decline of cargo on tracks (trains) is also partially owed to subsidiation of automobile traffic and highway expansions. It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  You get advantages from trucks in terms of flexibility and lower inventory due to faster shipment times. It doesn't make sense for things like coal, sure, but there's very real advantages you gain through shipping by truck instead of rail.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks. Often, the flexibility and reduced latency of freight by truck is worth the increased per-mile cost.
  - stefan_ 9y ago
    Freight by truck is worth it because of flexibility and reduced latency, flexibility and reduced latency are worth it because of just-in-time production, just-in-time production is worth it because of less inventory, less inventory is worth it because of less money locked up in inventory, less money locked up in inventory is worth it because of better cash flow on the quarterly reports, better cash flow on the quarterly reports is worth it because it makes the stock market like your company more, the stock market liking your company more is worth it because ??? We might just find out the things we thought are worth it, are not really. It works the other way around, too, of course, which is that the increased per-mile cost is still way below what it would have to be with the externalities accounted for.
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      We might just find out the things we thought are worth it, are not really. Then give a concrete quantification of that. It's a very complex question. Entire careers have been built on how to price something complex. That's called "economics."
fareesh 9y ago
Does the self driving truck have any kind of security? Given that there is a "do no harm" program embedded into the driving "subroutines", is there anything that prevents thieves from essentially surrounding the truck and robbing it in the middle of nowhere? Edit: To clarify I mean - in a hypothetical situation where it is ever driverless, couldnt 10 of us surround it, while I walk in and commandeer it, disable GPS and drive off ?
- RoyTyrell 9y ago
  The movie Solar Crisis already covered this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i729rZWTmDo#t=30m22s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i729rZWTmDo#t=30m22s
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  You can already do that to a normal truck. It's not really a problem. It'll be rare enough to fall under the umbrella of "that's what insurance is for"
- Gaelan 9y ago
  I mean, if 10 people surrounded a truck with a single human driver, they'd probably be able to drive off with it too.
- inverse_pi 9y ago
  What prevents 10 of us from surrounding a real truck, walking in, forcing the driver out and driving off? https://xkcd.com/1958/ https://xkcd.com/1958/
  - fareesh 9y ago
    I guess we are presuming that drivers wouldn't simply step on the gas in that kind of situation. Also I suspect the absence of a human being in the situation would psychologically make the theft feel "less wrong" to many would-be criminals.
- Digit-Al 9y ago
  A future 'true' driverless truck would likely not have any human controls. Or the controls would be computer locked and would require a code to be activated.
rconti 9y ago
Can't we get this technology nailed so well that hopping in a self-driving car for your day-to-day errands is something you do without a second thought, BEFORE we start sending out 30 ton missiles as beta tests?
- PeterisP 9y ago
  Obviously not, since carrying humans on arbitrary dynamic routes for day-to-day errands is a much harder task than driving a known route between two fixed, well mapped points, and navigating remote roads/streets is more difficult than driving on highways.
- astrodust 9y ago
  Move fast. Break things. Kill people.
- jstarfish 9y ago
  I agree with the sentiment, but guiding a large missile down a straight highway with human oversight has many fewer variables than navigating smaller missiles through crowded urban areas.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    Plus given the amount of trucking on certain corridors it might be possible to get some lanes ‘roped off’ for automated trucking only, further reducing the risk.
- marnett 9y ago
  The missiles involve more economic productivity.
bob_theslob646 9y ago
What really bothered me at the end of the commerical was the fact that the person could be in home in time for dinner. Unless we have some form of UBI, where is that person going to source the funds to pay for his dinner?
- conanbatt 9y ago
  What I find truly interesting of this thinking is that technological advances in the future are cataclysmic, but in the past are necessary. It never becomes something like "lets destroy all the farming machinery, so we create more jobs plowing the land".
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    Oh, you can rest assured that we have enough cataclysms in history to make the case. There's that entire "let's destroy all machinery that is taking your jobs" movement that gave a name to the "avoiding new things" attitude. All that in a period when people were choosing between literally dying of huger unemployed or of extenuation at work. Just because the cataclysm is temporary does not mean it didn't exist.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      Would you advocate to destroy all the machinery those people clamored against today?
      - marcosdumay 9y ago
        Of course not. But some welfare would have saved a few million lives, greatly enriched any country (although people didn't know that by the time), and removed one or two world wars from our history.
        conanbatt 9y ago
        You got some leaps of faith there. Capitalism was basically born by the application of technology disruptively like it did. Saddling the creative forces with the consequences can easily prevent the change from happening at all, and in the end, it is better for the whole.

365 points by wil_wheat_on 9y ago

> Uber has a video depicting this journey, which took place staring in then midwest and then via short haul to Sanders, Arizona, where it was loaded onto an autonomous truck and then transferred to Topock, Arizona, where it made the switch to another human-driven vehicle. This is a big step towards commercialization of Uber’s autonomous truck tech, and it seems like it puts it ahead of some competitors who want to do similar things, including Embark trucking. It’s also the first we’ve heard about Uber’s self-driving truck business in a little while, so it’s good to see Uber’s continuing to make progress and devote attention to this issue. Uber's main line of business i.e. on demand car transportation is loosing money. They tell a story that they fix it with self driving cars which incidentally would require gigantic additional funding. Now they have expanded into self driving trucks that do already some services with some capacity in the name of their own surely significant trucking business for some customers that call for them through their app. This is the real deal, I know because there is a video. Musk heaps one money loosing business over the other but at least they all make sense and are different. With Uber it was doubling down and now tripling down. Not impressed.

PeterMikhailov 9y ago

yay the future is here https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gv3vvx/logan-subtly-predicts-our-gritty-future-of-climate-change-and-big-agriculture https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gv3vvx/logan-subt...

ryannevius 9y ago

I don't mean to be a downer...but is there really anything novel here? I understand that this is a first step, but I feel like Uber could have significantly reduced the manual labor required (e.g. to disconnect/connect a trailer). It seems that the load (mental/physical) on the "driver" of the self-driving semi will be nearly equal to a driver who has cruise control.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mav3r1ck 9y ago
You’re right it’s not that novel. Volvo has self-driving* truck convoys going back to the 90s I think. I think for long-haul trucking it’s certainly pretty hard to stay fully tuned while driving for such long times. And for truck companies, they can save tons of money on labor when they don’t have to pay the driver for the hours on the road and just for the manual disconnect/connect docking. Maybe they can make it fully automated, but why haven’t any trucks done that already? It’s an easier problem to solve than self-driving. * by convoy, I mean that one truck up front was driven by a human and then a few were automated to draft from directly behind to just follow the truck in front of them. EDIT: Here's a source for the 90s, where this paper had a few authors from Volvo. from: http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/ITFVHA15/ITFVHA15_USA_FutureTruck_ADP_TF_WhitePaper_Draft_Final_TF_Approved_Sept_2015.pdf http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/ITFVHA15/... >Additionally, different applications of automated driving for trucks have been demonstrated across the globe since the 1990’s. The focus has been on proof of concept for truck platooning due to the foreseen fuel economy and traffic flow benefits.
- roryisok 9y ago
  Since the 90s?? That's very impressive if true. I remember reading about a proposition to do this for cars years ago, before any talk of self driving vehicles. A car would lock in behind a professional driver vehicle such as a truck or bus and match the turning and braking. I didn't think the tech existed though
  - rmattes 9y ago
    The 90s wasn't exactly the stone age, there was plenty of self-driving vehicle work taking place. For example: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-national-automated-highway-system-that-almost-was-63027245/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-national-automate...
  - mav3r1ck 9y ago

nickpeterson 9y ago

I think these companies (autonomous car/truck) understand that they need to transition these processes slowly over time. I feel like it's better to start with something only moderately different and iterate than try to completely reinvent the entire structure of such a large industry. First they do this, then they automate more and more portions, at each step reducing the amount of manual, human supervision. It also allows the industry to more consciously reduce numbers through attrition rather than mass layoffs. Better to stop young guys from becoming truck drivers and have the automation increase over 10-15 years until it just really isn't a career. The only people that will be affected are in the 25-35 age range now who have already taken the plunge, but at least they get some time to consider other options.

marcosdumay 9y ago
> I think these companies (autonomous car/truck) understand that they need to transition these processes slowly over time. They understand pretty well that they need to transition faster than their competition. Given that, they'll do it as slow as their competitors allow, because it's investment and they don't like doing that quickly. How fast that means is anybody's guess. But they can't just stop and wait.
nixgeek 9y ago
This is a woefully optimistic viewpoint: when the technology is ready there will be layoffs. IMO. These companies aren’t slow-playing their hand to avoid layoffs, and it’s a race to see who can perfect the technology first.
- nickpeterson 9y ago
  No doubt, but I think it's just the nature of complex systems. You could invent a drug that cures all diseases and maladies, and there would still be practicing doctors for 5-10 years while the cost/distribution/red-tape was worked out.

nopinsight 9y ago

For those concerned with jobs to be eliminated, it might not be as big a problem as we think for the trucking industry. "Over the next 10 years, he said, we need to attract almost 900,000 new people to the industry. Demographics is a big part of the problem. ATA’s research arm, the American Transportation Research Institute, recently updated its demographic data on drivers and found some 57% of drivers are 45 or older. Only 4.4% are 20-24 years old, noted Rebecca Brewster, president and COO of ATRI." http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/drivers/news/story/2017/10/driver-shortage-could-hit-all-time-high-this-year.aspx http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/drivers/news/story/2017/... In addition, there will still be much need for humans to take care of the maintenance of the trucks and manipulation of the cargo over the next couple decades. So there will likely be a significant number of truckers still employed, perhaps with increased productivity. Also, certain other jobs will create large increases in demand for labor over the upcoming decades, in particular home care for the elderly and, if we get politics right, better & more individualized education for the young. (A reminder) Lump of labor fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy --- Added in response to some comments below: Yes, there will be challenges particularly regarding the distribution of benefits from increased productivity. The share of wealth garnered to capital holders will likely increase. People in labor force who have the skills to develop and maintain automation systems will certainly benefit. (That is why education and (re)training are crucial.) The rest may enjoy some, but probably not most, of the larger pie created by advanced technology. However, the economic pie will be enlarged and there will be more to share. How the fruits of technology will be distributed will depend to a large extent on negotiations and politics.

nitwit005 9y ago
> "Over the next 10 years, he said, we need to attract almost 900,000 new people to the industry. The pay of truckers has, in inflation adjusted terms, shrunk by more than half since the 80s. They mostly need to bring in more people because their turnover is ridiculous.
wongarsu 9y ago
>some 57% of drivers are 45 or older. Only 4.4% are 20-24 years old For reference: Assuming a driver starts working at age 18 and retires at age 65, and given equal distribution of workers over all ages, you would expect 42% of workers to be 45 or older, and 10% of workers to be 20-24 years old (if you assume 21-70, then 51% should be 45 or older). Just in case anybody else was wondering what those numbers mean. As an aside, this projection from the same presenation looks slightly suspicious: http://www.truckinginfo.com/fc_images/news/l-driverturnover-ata2017.jpg http://www.truckinginfo.com/fc_images/news/l-driverturnover-...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

vmateixeira 9y ago

I would be interested to know how would these autonomous cars/trucks behave on non-linear roads, with potholes, adverse conditions, etc What kind of problem are these companies trying to address that hasn't been addressed yet? Will these trucks be a replacement for trains? I can see the later ones being way more easy to automate (e.g. London Overground)

matt_wulfeck 9y ago
That’s probably why Arizona is the test bed right now. Predictable weather patterns, long stretches of flat, open roads, low traffic, and legislative openness. optimizing 80/20
bdamm 9y ago
I'd expect they'll make potholes much worse, with all trucks driving exactly over the same spot repeatedly, until they learn to avoid the pothole. Perhaps Waze-style reporting will fill the gap.
- allannienhuis 9y ago
  Don't you think they'd be able to take that into account with the software? Large trucks already put a huge amount of wear like that on highways (I've seen plenty of ruts from trucks in asphalt roads). Technology like this is an opportunity to actually improve the wear patterns.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    Without wanting to sound too cynical: Why would a private company care about the wear patterns of public highways? Unless it's affecting the operation of their fleet, in a negative way, they don't have any reason at all to improve anything about it. Especially considering how this does not look like a trivial problem to solve. Wouldn't something like this require an additional sensor suite to check for more detailed road conditions? What about the future, when other companies start doing the same, wouldn't that require some level of cross-company cooperation to make sure trucks take somewhat randomized lines on the street, to reduce wear?

bluetwo 9y ago

I feel like they re-invented the train. :-)

julbaxter 9y ago
Without the rails.
- mtgx 9y ago
  Will Uber pay a bigger portion of the road repair taxes? Especially considering truckers already pay a disproportionately lower tax compared to the impact they have on the roads.
  - lambda_lover 9y ago
    Do they? I mean, trucks are hardly gas efficient, and aren't most roads maintained (supposedly) via gas taxes? The question, I suppose, is how much harder they are on the roads relative to their fuel efficiency.
    - lsy 9y ago
      Fuel efficiency decreases generally relative to the surface area of the front of the vehicle, where road damage increases with the mass of the vehicle. So a long, heavy vehicle like a truck is indeed harder on the road relative to their fuel efficiency.
      - andechs 9y ago
        > road damage increases with the mass Road damage actually increases proportional to mass^4 - trucks cause exponentially more damage than cars. https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/ https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...
    - panopticon 9y ago
      > I mean, trucks are hardly gas efficient, and aren't most roads maintained (supposedly) via gas taxes? The gas tax hasn't been increased since 1993 and accounts for less than half of road funding.

TorKlingberg 9y ago

I assume these self-driving trucks still have a human driver in them. So, which exact parts are self-driving? Is it like Tesla's autopilot where it does lane following, cruise control and keeping the distance on highways?

petra 9y ago
It's not self driving. But it may be One of the first places that get paid real money(lets say UBER'S commission) for testing self-driving.
olyjohn 9y ago
It's just adaptive cruise and lane keeping. Just like trucks already have now. The headlines to attract clicks on these are so infuriating...
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
> So, which exact parts are self-driving? Just enough of it that they can skirt the DOT hour rules about hours worked while still blaming the driver for any crashes or tickets would be my guess. That's the obvious lowest hanging fruit as far as trucking is concerned. If you can automate enough of the long haul grind that the driver could possibly be sleeping then you have a massive competitive advantage over everyone else. If you don't automate enough to be able to skirt the DOT time rules there's not much of a competitive advantage.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I don't think you can skirt them. Time on-duty counts against their daily limit even if they're not driving (the example given in an official guide is a trucker taking a bus to get to the truck), so they must still get a proper rest afterwards. So Uber can't count the "not driving but watching the road" as time off.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    They're not going to be on duty. They're going to be sleeping in the sleeper, on paper at least.

lonelyw0lf 9y ago

The video ad is so crazy -- we still need a human to lock/unlock the cargo?? and its good for the truckers because they can go home early to their family?? The first part can be trivially automated and the second is just stupid. Truckers get paid per hour of work, less work == less money. AI-self-driving has arrived but to make the transition look "humane" as in the AD is crazy. Almost insults the intelligence of these guys who have been driving our cargo around for whole generations.

ShabbosGoy 9y ago
I think it will be some time before the big shipping players all decide to switch to self-driving trucks. We’re still a decade away from complete vehicular automation. > The first part can be trivially automated and the second is just stupid. Truckers get paid per hour of work, less work == less money. You could always pay them a salary and benefits, and hopefully UBI would exist at that point. Of course it’s unlikely for Uber to do that, because their strategy has been the exact opposite.
inverse_pi 9y ago
hmm, Im not an expert but isn't your logic based on constant supply/demand? Once self driving trucks become mainstream could it be that truckers will do fewer long trips but more shorter trips which doesn't necessarily lower their income?
djrogers 9y ago
Truckers generally get paid per mile, not per hour. They are also heavily regulated as to the number of hours they can drive (why you see so many husband/wife driving teams). One can easily foresee a future where a self-driving truck has a driver in it who is only driving 'regulated' hours for a small portion of a trip (say during high traffic, highway entry/exit, etc). The driver could spend the rest of his time sleeping, reading, or coding - he'd basically be a passenger. If a truck can haul for 20-30 hours without stopping for overnights, that dramatically changes the economies of fast freight.
- BurningFrog 9y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

I am not sure that I want a company that is most famous for breaking rules, skirting regulation, and stealing medical records of it's victims operating large freight trucks on public roads.

megy 9y ago
This is a good point, but it can no way be worse than what we have now.

natch 9y ago

Notice that you can extend this model to passengers and long-haul bus, train, or simply self-driven vehicle transport, in all of which cases Uber is well positioned.

mmazing 9y ago

Should be a fun day when people realize they can pretty easily hijack automated trucks. I assume you could either get in the back of the thing while it's moving, or simply slow down in front of it and cause it to stop. Unload your newly acquired goods and be on your way!

JackFr 9y ago
What makes you think they would be easier to hijack? Part of the ease of hijacking truck is that you can drive off with it. What if the trailer locks its wheels and bricks itself, if it determines it's being hijacked, all while recording 360 video and sending immediate alerts to management and law enforcement? Certainly better than a driver afraid for his life.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  Think burglary vs home invasion. It's not just about easier, it's about it being a different threshold for whether it's worth it. The presence of other people drastically complicates crimes, and makes it much more likely that you'll end up dead or in prison for decades. Also, all the countermeasures you mention aren't free or without issues, and could be in place now, but aren't. Why not?
  - Kalium 9y ago
    In general, the real bottleneck with theft at scale isn't the actual theft. It's turning the stolen goods into money afterwards and disposing of the evidence. Items being slightly easier to steal doesn't do much to make them easier to fence.
Johnny555 9y ago
Can't you use the same strategy for human driven trucks? Except that the human driver is a lot less likely to be uploading a live video stream back to the corporate office.
amclennon 9y ago
Assuming the truck driver isn't heavily armed or willing to endanger themselves by wrecking an 18 wheeler, there's nothing really stopping anyone from doing that today. You seem to be working under the assumption the nobody has ever hijacked truck up to this point, and that for whatever reason self driving trucks would be left unlocked with no security mechanisms in place whatsoever.

ktpsns 9y ago

The funny thing in this US-centric view is that we have such a cargo since a century where trains play the role of "self-driving cargo". In europe, the decline of cargo on tracks (trains) is also partially owed to subsidiation of automobile traffic and highway expansions. It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago
You get advantages from trucks in terms of flexibility and lower inventory due to faster shipment times. It doesn't make sense for things like coal, sure, but there's very real advantages you gain through shipping by truck instead of rail.
stcredzero 9y ago
It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks. Often, the flexibility and reduced latency of freight by truck is worth the increased per-mile cost.
- stefan_ 9y ago
  Freight by truck is worth it because of flexibility and reduced latency, flexibility and reduced latency are worth it because of just-in-time production, just-in-time production is worth it because of less inventory, less inventory is worth it because of less money locked up in inventory, less money locked up in inventory is worth it because of better cash flow on the quarterly reports, better cash flow on the quarterly reports is worth it because it makes the stock market like your company more, the stock market liking your company more is worth it because ??? We might just find out the things we thought are worth it, are not really. It works the other way around, too, of course, which is that the increased per-mile cost is still way below what it would have to be with the externalities accounted for.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    We might just find out the things we thought are worth it, are not really. Then give a concrete quantification of that. It's a very complex question. Entire careers have been built on how to price something complex. That's called "economics."

fareesh 9y ago

Does the self driving truck have any kind of security? Given that there is a "do no harm" program embedded into the driving "subroutines", is there anything that prevents thieves from essentially surrounding the truck and robbing it in the middle of nowhere? Edit: To clarify I mean - in a hypothetical situation where it is ever driverless, couldnt 10 of us surround it, while I walk in and commandeer it, disable GPS and drive off ?

RoyTyrell 9y ago
The movie Solar Crisis already covered this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i729rZWTmDo#t=30m22s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i729rZWTmDo#t=30m22s
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
You can already do that to a normal truck. It's not really a problem. It'll be rare enough to fall under the umbrella of "that's what insurance is for"
Gaelan 9y ago
I mean, if 10 people surrounded a truck with a single human driver, they'd probably be able to drive off with it too.
inverse_pi 9y ago
What prevents 10 of us from surrounding a real truck, walking in, forcing the driver out and driving off? https://xkcd.com/1958/ https://xkcd.com/1958/
- fareesh 9y ago
  I guess we are presuming that drivers wouldn't simply step on the gas in that kind of situation. Also I suspect the absence of a human being in the situation would psychologically make the theft feel "less wrong" to many would-be criminals.
Digit-Al 9y ago
A future 'true' driverless truck would likely not have any human controls. Or the controls would be computer locked and would require a code to be activated.

rconti 9y ago

Can't we get this technology nailed so well that hopping in a self-driving car for your day-to-day errands is something you do without a second thought, BEFORE we start sending out 30 ton missiles as beta tests?

PeterisP 9y ago
Obviously not, since carrying humans on arbitrary dynamic routes for day-to-day errands is a much harder task than driving a known route between two fixed, well mapped points, and navigating remote roads/streets is more difficult than driving on highways.
astrodust 9y ago
Move fast. Break things. Kill people.
jstarfish 9y ago
I agree with the sentiment, but guiding a large missile down a straight highway with human oversight has many fewer variables than navigating smaller missiles through crowded urban areas.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Plus given the amount of trucking on certain corridors it might be possible to get some lanes ‘roped off’ for automated trucking only, further reducing the risk.
marnett 9y ago
The missiles involve more economic productivity.

bob_theslob646 9y ago

What really bothered me at the end of the commerical was the fact that the person could be in home in time for dinner. Unless we have some form of UBI, where is that person going to source the funds to pay for his dinner?

conanbatt 9y ago
What I find truly interesting of this thinking is that technological advances in the future are cataclysmic, but in the past are necessary. It never becomes something like "lets destroy all the farming machinery, so we create more jobs plowing the land".
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  Oh, you can rest assured that we have enough cataclysms in history to make the case. There's that entire "let's destroy all machinery that is taking your jobs" movement that gave a name to the "avoiding new things" attitude. All that in a period when people were choosing between literally dying of huger unemployed or of extenuation at work. Just because the cataclysm is temporary does not mean it didn't exist.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    Would you advocate to destroy all the machinery those people clamored against today?
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      Of course not. But some welfare would have saved a few million lives, greatly enriched any country (although people didn't know that by the time), and removed one or two world wars from our history.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        You got some leaps of faith there. Capitalism was basically born by the application of technology disruptively like it did. Saddling the creative forces with the consequences can easily prevent the change from happening at all, and in the end, it is better for the whole.