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It seems like there's an aerodynamic advantage to the platoons. Placing an autonomous truck in the lead of one of these platoons, down the road, seems like a re

It seems like there's an aerodynamic advantage to the platoons. Placing an autonomous truck in the lead of one of these platoons, down the road, seems like a reasonable "upgrade" strategy.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Placing an autonomous truck in the lead of one of these platoons, down the road, seems like a reasonable "upgrade" strategy Sure. I just don’t see the time-to-market advantage of starting with a human lead outpacing the core technology advantage of being fully autonomous from the get go. (Counterpoint: Waymo using Uber to manage the front end in Atlanta.)
- deleted 1y ago
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- dmurray 1y ago
  But the company that figures out platooning can also work on self-driving, or can partner with or sell itself to the company that does figure out self-driving. Working on platooning - assuming it's a more or less viable business idea on its own - doesn't need to be a distraction that prevents anyone from developing fully autonomous trucks.
anigbrowl 1y ago
Right up until there's an accident and the lead truck suddenly has to slam on the brakes. Depending on the length of the 'platoon' and traffic density, that could get really messy really fast.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  All the trucks should have their own set of brakes, so the stopping distance should be similar for all of them, right? Unless the front truck is actually hitting something, causing it to slow down more than the following trucks (and then quickly turn into a pancake).
wombatpm 1y ago
If we can fly a drone halfway across the world, why can’t we have human augmentation for self driving trucks. Have a human, rested, and alert monitoring several platoons back at HQ. The only reason you want a person on the train is security and paperwork.
- nradov 1y ago
  We can't reliably fly a drone halfway across the world. The mishap rates for remote piloted aircraft are terrible compared to similar manned aircraft. And for trucks, we can't even get fast, reliable cellular or satellite data on a lot of roads (including tunnels).

It seems like there's an aerodynamic advantage to the platoons. Placing an autonomous truck in the lead of one of these platoons, down the road, seems like a reasonable "upgrade" strategy.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> Placing an autonomous truck in the lead of one of these platoons, down the road, seems like a reasonable "upgrade" strategy Sure. I just don’t see the time-to-market advantage of starting with a human lead outpacing the core technology advantage of being fully autonomous from the get go. (Counterpoint: Waymo using Uber to manage the front end in Atlanta.)

deleted 1y ago
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dmurray 1y ago
But the company that figures out platooning can also work on self-driving, or can partner with or sell itself to the company that does figure out self-driving. Working on platooning - assuming it's a more or less viable business idea on its own - doesn't need to be a distraction that prevents anyone from developing fully autonomous trucks.

anigbrowl 1y ago

Right up until there's an accident and the lead truck suddenly has to slam on the brakes. Depending on the length of the 'platoon' and traffic density, that could get really messy really fast.

bee_rider 1y ago
All the trucks should have their own set of brakes, so the stopping distance should be similar for all of them, right? Unless the front truck is actually hitting something, causing it to slow down more than the following trucks (and then quickly turn into a pancake).

wombatpm 1y ago

If we can fly a drone halfway across the world, why can’t we have human augmentation for self driving trucks. Have a human, rested, and alert monitoring several platoons back at HQ. The only reason you want a person on the train is security and paperwork.

nradov 1y ago
We can't reliably fly a drone halfway across the world. The mishap rates for remote piloted aircraft are terrible compared to similar manned aircraft. And for trucks, we can't even get fast, reliable cellular or satellite data on a lot of roads (including tunnels).