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Trucking isn't going to be replaced soon because it's not a lucrative career. I mean, truckers might make six figures, but those truckers are also paying gas ou

by HWR_14 5y ago

Trucking isn't going to be replaced soon because it's not a lucrative career. I mean, truckers might make six figures, but those truckers are also paying gas out of their own pocket. Even before any other expenses, 2/3 of a trucker's "salary" (really income) may be going to fuel. More goes to maintenance. So, going full EV has huge cost savings. Getting rid of the driver, not so much. The problem, other than the cost of the bigger EV cab, is recharging is too damn slow.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
Automated battery-swap stations might finally start to make sense with self-driving EV trucks. EVs get away with charging overnight because humans also have to charge overnight when they sleep. But if there's no human driver, and just a big fancy truck instead, you (an investor) really don't want that massive capital investment idling for hours every day just to charge itself. I can easily imagine people making a killing by charging up a bunch of batteries in a really sunny place, then having their robots swap out trucks' batteries as they pass through.
- bombcar 5y ago
  Or you can catenary the roadways: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Battery swap is a hard problem. Vehicle design is hard. Dealing with the real costs of shitty batteries is hard (who owns which batteries with how much life on them) is hard. Moving heavy objects safely and routinely by minimum wage labor is hard.
otterley 5y ago
Company drivers, like the ones discussed in this article, don’t pay for their own fuel. Owner-operators do, but they also get to set their own rates, so they’re in control of how much money they make (subject to what the market will bear, of course).
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > Owner-operators do, but they also get to set their own rates, so they’re in control Sometimes. 1099 mislabeling is rampant in trucking, as is locking "owner operators" to a single company via owing outrageous sums for training (that get forgiven over 2-3 years) or from leasing the trucks directly from their sole customer. At the very least, a company seeking shipping services almost certainly goes through a dispatching company, not directly to an owner-operator. So there's not really negotiating there. Sure, maybe you can refuse routes, but maybe you stop getting asked to perform them. John Oliver just put out a piece on the abuse of 1099s in the trucking industry this past Sunday. You should check it out. I'm not saying you should take what he says as the gospel truth, but it's a more reliable source than nothing.
  - otterley 5y ago
    I’ll check it out; thanks!
sangnoir 5y ago
Pick-and-place factory jobs were not lucrative either, but got automated simply because robots are better at it. Having human drivers that get tired and have a legislated maximum number of hours they can drive in a day (for a good reason) leads to inefficiencies that Walmart may be eager to get rid of: some fruits, for example, have a small window between ripening and going bad, being able to deliver produce faster in general will be a huge plus.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  An automatic truck doesn't go faster per mile. If it were really valuable, they would pair people up in trucks and have them alternate shifts driving. And that might be what happens with EVs, because the costs of trucks might actually be the limiting factor for a while.
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    > An automatic truck doesn't go faster per mile. Of course it would, if it doesn't have to stop for 8+ hours per day. > If it were really valuable, they would pair people up in trucks and have them alternate shifts driving You're ignoring a whole bunch of human factors (including cost vs speed trade-offs), but you'e right; some truckers do get paired up.

by HWR_14 5y ago

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago

Automated battery-swap stations might finally start to make sense with self-driving EV trucks. EVs get away with charging overnight because humans also have to charge overnight when they sleep. But if there's no human driver, and just a big fancy truck instead, you (an investor) really don't want that massive capital investment idling for hours every day just to charge itself. I can easily imagine people making a killing by charging up a bunch of batteries in a really sunny place, then having their robots swap out trucks' batteries as they pass through.

bombcar 5y ago
Or you can catenary the roadways: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg
HWR_14 5y ago
Battery swap is a hard problem. Vehicle design is hard. Dealing with the real costs of shitty batteries is hard (who owns which batteries with how much life on them) is hard. Moving heavy objects safely and routinely by minimum wage labor is hard.

otterley 5y ago

Company drivers, like the ones discussed in this article, don’t pay for their own fuel. Owner-operators do, but they also get to set their own rates, so they’re in control of how much money they make (subject to what the market will bear, of course).

HWR_14 5y ago
> Owner-operators do, but they also get to set their own rates, so they’re in control Sometimes. 1099 mislabeling is rampant in trucking, as is locking "owner operators" to a single company via owing outrageous sums for training (that get forgiven over 2-3 years) or from leasing the trucks directly from their sole customer. At the very least, a company seeking shipping services almost certainly goes through a dispatching company, not directly to an owner-operator. So there's not really negotiating there. Sure, maybe you can refuse routes, but maybe you stop getting asked to perform them. John Oliver just put out a piece on the abuse of 1099s in the trucking industry this past Sunday. You should check it out. I'm not saying you should take what he says as the gospel truth, but it's a more reliable source than nothing.
- otterley 5y ago
  I’ll check it out; thanks!

sangnoir 5y ago

Pick-and-place factory jobs were not lucrative either, but got automated simply because robots are better at it. Having human drivers that get tired and have a legislated maximum number of hours they can drive in a day (for a good reason) leads to inefficiencies that Walmart may be eager to get rid of: some fruits, for example, have a small window between ripening and going bad, being able to deliver produce faster in general will be a huge plus.

HWR_14 5y ago
An automatic truck doesn't go faster per mile. If it were really valuable, they would pair people up in trucks and have them alternate shifts driving. And that might be what happens with EVs, because the costs of trucks might actually be the limiting factor for a while.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > An automatic truck doesn't go faster per mile. Of course it would, if it doesn't have to stop for 8+ hours per day. > If it were really valuable, they would pair people up in trucks and have them alternate shifts driving You're ignoring a whole bunch of human factors (including cost vs speed trade-offs), but you'e right; some truckers do get paired up.