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The article claims about 3 million truck tractors on US roads, and puts the cost of each driver at about $65k/year. Am I correct in naively calculating somethi

The article claims about 3 million truck tractors on US roads, and puts the cost of each driver at about $65k/year. Am I correct in naively calculating something like $200B/year on the table for full-self-driving truck technology?

adaml_623 4y ago
Truck drivers do a lot more than just sit in the cab and drive. Sure I guess there are operating models where you don't need one driver paired all the time with one truck but definitely can't just replace drivers IMHO
- alexdoesstuff 4y ago
  The fact that truck drivers do more than just drive isn't a necessity though. There is no reason why truck drivers also needs to be an unpaid loaders/unloaders and any other roles currently taking on by them. It's just a matter of "we've always done it like that". Businesses will reorganize themselves if it means a substantial reduction in transport costs.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    > There is no reason why truck drivers also needs to be an unpaid loaders/unloaders and any other roles currently taking on by them. There's no reason, but then it also proportionally reduces the cap of $65k to some lower amount, that doesn't include those extra responsibilities.
yourapostasy 4y ago
That’s what is at stake, but monetization will be less than that valuation because Level 5 autonomy roughly expands capacity 3X (bots don’t sleep), so there likely will be somewhat less monetized value. Might need to add the capex of equipment costs, and subtract the externalities costs of increases wear and tear on infrastructure and equipment.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  You probably have to kind of expect the outcome of successful autonomy and electrification to be 'weird'. We can't really predict what makes sense when we don't know where the costs and capabilities will end up.
alexdoesstuff 4y ago
The $65k (plus/minus bits and pieces) is then consequently also the cap on the additional costs of the self-driving tech and operations per truck. It's not necessarily obvious to me that we'll be there in the next few years. Also, some of the easy use cases for potential self-driving tech have - at least in the US - already been put on rail which is in a sense almost a self-driving truck. In my view one of the major opportunities missing for making trucking more cost competitive and reducing the societal impact of trucking (emissions, road wear, less than desirable work conditions for truck drivers) is to move more and more freight onto rail. The US is quite good at it actually, but in particular Europe needs to get their act together on it.

adaml_623 4y ago

Truck drivers do a lot more than just sit in the cab and drive. Sure I guess there are operating models where you don't need one driver paired all the time with one truck but definitely can't just replace drivers IMHO

alexdoesstuff 4y ago
The fact that truck drivers do more than just drive isn't a necessity though. There is no reason why truck drivers also needs to be an unpaid loaders/unloaders and any other roles currently taking on by them. It's just a matter of "we've always done it like that". Businesses will reorganize themselves if it means a substantial reduction in transport costs.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  > There is no reason why truck drivers also needs to be an unpaid loaders/unloaders and any other roles currently taking on by them. There's no reason, but then it also proportionally reduces the cap of $65k to some lower amount, that doesn't include those extra responsibilities.

yourapostasy 4y ago

That’s what is at stake, but monetization will be less than that valuation because Level 5 autonomy roughly expands capacity 3X (bots don’t sleep), so there likely will be somewhat less monetized value. Might need to add the capex of equipment costs, and subtract the externalities costs of increases wear and tear on infrastructure and equipment.

maxerickson 4y ago
You probably have to kind of expect the outcome of successful autonomy and electrification to be 'weird'. We can't really predict what makes sense when we don't know where the costs and capabilities will end up.

alexdoesstuff 4y ago

The $65k (plus/minus bits and pieces) is then consequently also the cap on the additional costs of the self-driving tech and operations per truck. It's not necessarily obvious to me that we'll be there in the next few years. Also, some of the easy use cases for potential self-driving tech have - at least in the US - already been put on rail which is in a sense almost a self-driving truck. In my view one of the major opportunities missing for making trucking more cost competitive and reducing the societal impact of trucking (emissions, road wear, less than desirable work conditions for truck drivers) is to move more and more freight onto rail. The US is quite good at it actually, but in particular Europe needs to get their act together on it.