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I work with two companies developing true autonomous trucks and the conclusions in this article are dated and not accurate in light of the bigger picture. 1) T
by mdorazio 4y ago
I work with two companies developing true autonomous trucks and the conclusions in this article are dated and not accurate in light of the bigger picture.
1) The model most are working toward is "hub to hub" not point to point. As in, A human driver drives the truck from the warehouse or port to a hub on the highway outside the city surface streets. Then they get out of the truck and pick up another one that needs to go back into the city. The truck then drives itself on the highway to another hub near its destination where another human driver completes the trip. This works in multiple ways - it allows human drivers to deal with the hard part of automation while also avoiding the terrible away from home lifestyle, and it allows you to have dedicated autonomous trucks for on-highway separate from your human-driven fleet (you can swap the trailers instead of using the same cab). You'll see these hubs start cropping up in a couple years.
2) On-highway autonomy is not that far away anymore. It's definitely not a "next year" thing, but mid-late decade is a near certainty based on the current state of the tech. That's a long time for people used to software, but not a long time compared to the lifecycle of a truck.
3) There seems to be an implicit assumption in this write-up that autonomous systems will remain horribly expensive, which isn't true. They're expensive today because each generation of development is effectively custom built in small quantities. Just like Starsky said their camera system would drop in price with scale, a "ready for production" generation of autonomous driving kit in a few years will likely be close to 1/3 the current kit cost, which has very large impacts on the total ROI calculation.
I don't want to make it sound like there aren't big challenges left to solve - there are - but there's also a reason so much investment money has flowed into this space. The ROI does make sense, just not on the original hype-cycle timeline that a lot of people reported.
- algo_trader 4y agoI agree with your analysis. Autonomy also dove-tails very well with the inevitable electrification (reduced maintenance, higher up time, higher capex lower opex, etc) DO you have any opinions on etrucks-battery-swapping?
- mattferderer 4y agoNot my area but seems like if you swab cabs you would be able to keep your fleet either on the road or charging & getting maintenance. > The charge time offers time for maintenance & switching trailers > Charge times keep dropping & miles per charge keep increasing > Batteries currently make up almost half the price of a car. Battery prices are dropping though. Not sure about cab prices. Also these cabs might be very cheap without human comforts in comparison to the battery, so if battery ends up being bulk of cost, you might gain little value there. Anyways just 2 random cents from someone who finds interest in this but doesn't actually know anything.
- InfiniteRand 4y agoI think this point is key "Those margins would jump to 58% if that remote driver only needed to pay attention for the first and last miles." - if you're going for #1 you still have a human in the loop for the first and last mile. If I understand the original post correctly (and I may not be), going from human in the loop at beginning and end-of-trip to no human in the loop at all is where the ROI vanishes
- pungentcomment 4y agoTrucker with a CS degree here. I'm very skeptical of the feasibility of autonomous highway trucks that can drive outside very tightly defined parameters or ideal situations. That being said, it just occurred to me, how will these trucks react to or let alone detect tire blowouts or break failures/fires on the trailers? Edit: I know from experience that getting a project to what we think is 95% there is relatively easy compared to the last 5% that make the product/project 100% viable. The real life testing will kill you if the edge cases don't. (I don't mean that literally, although...)
- disgruntledphd2 4y agoYeah, and what about theft? If the truck is programmed to stop if there's a person in front (one would hope so), then how can you stop thieves lifting the whole thing?
- bglazer 4y agoHow is that prevented now? Also, a relatively common form of theft now is the human driver absconding with the trailer. Also, a self driving truck would presumably be generating high resolution 3d scans of any potential hijacker.
- serf 4y ago>How is that prevented now? people are generally a lot less brazen towards other humans compared to how they interact with automations or things that are remotely surveilled rather than with a human attendant. trains with unarmed guards generally don't get robbed.
- disconcision 4y ago>high resolution 3d scans of any potential hijacker. Hijackers will be 3d printed and their facsimiles imprisoned
- digdugdirk 4y agoSide question - mind sharing a bit about your story? Some questions popped immediately to mind when I read your comment: Which came first? Trucking or the CS degree? Why trucking if you have the degree required to get a job sitting behind a computer vs sitting behind the wheel? What're your general thoughts about the two industries/jobs?
- dukeofdoom 4y agoJust curious are there any sensors built into the road that would help to speed this along.
- cbdumas 4y ago> The model most are working toward is "hub to hub" not point to point. As in, A human driver drives the truck from the warehouse or port to a hub on the highway outside the city surface streets. Then they get out of the truck and pick up another one that needs to go back into the city. What's the competitive advantage of this setup over a train?
- michaelt 4y agoI agree that's a concern from an investor's perspective. But: 1. You benefit from the massive subsidy America provides for road transport 2. You can serve places that don't have good rail connections 3. If you're moving standard trailers, your 'hubs' don't need costly build-out like cranes. Your MVP hub is just a car park - or maybe even just a quiet side street. So you can serve a town that needs 2 trucks/week, instead of only being able to serve towns that need 40 trucks/week.
- mdorazio 4y agoThe thing about trains is that they gain cost efficiency in exchange for a massive time penalty. In most cases, you have to truck your goods from a warehouse to a rail center, unload them from the trailer to a rail car, wait for the entire train to be loaded and prepped, wait for a slot on the rail network, travel at normally ~45mph, and then do the reverse at the destination rail center. A trucking hub can swap a trailer in maybe 10 minutes and there's no need to group shipments together - you can send a single trailer load of stuff from point A to point B with minimal interruptions just like with a normal truck today.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]