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And with that, the elimination of entire industries built up around the existence of car ownership like: mechanics, car washes, parking, valets, body shops, ren

And with that, the elimination of entire industries built up around the existence of car ownership like: mechanics, car washes, parking, valets, body shops, rental companies, car insurance, car loans, and on and on. I'm not so sure that's true. If a truck/car breaks down on the road, it doesn't matter if there's a human behind the wheel or a software program. It still needs to get fixed. There will still need to be financing of these vehicles, ostensibly because they might be more expensive because of the software/hardware allowing it to be autonomous in the first place. We haven't really worked through how insuring these things will work, but just because they're autonomous does not mean that all of a sudden the entire automotive insurance industry evaporates. On the whole, however, I agree with the initial point about how the peripheral economies built around servicing human truck drivers on their routes will take a hit. I'm thinking of all the towns on the way to Watertown from Minneapolis that would probably evaporate if they didn't have the trucks running the daily on the 212.

peletiah 12y ago
But there will be far fewer cars, as it's no longer necessary to own one. Less parking space, narrower paved roads (Traffic will also be more efficient), less car sustained industry overall.
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  Unless you carve out the existing infrastructure, roads won't magically get narrower jsut because they are not used.
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    The roads around here seem to get redone every 5-10 years at most, which provides plenty of opportunity to narrow them.
akira2501 12y ago
> On the whole, however, I agree with the initial point about how the peripheral economies built around servicing human truck drivers on their routes will take a hit. I'm thinking of all the towns on the way to Watertown from Minneapolis that would probably evaporate if they didn't have the trucks running the daily on the 212. Are they going to stop the trucks? Are self driving trucks going to be able to carry more load? Are we going to change highway rules to allow more than 80k pounds total weight for a single tractor/trailer? Are the trucks going to be electric or have vastly improved MPG? No. So there will still be the same amount of truck traffic as well as the same amount of fuel being sold in nearly the same locations. Perhaps restaurants will take a hit, but fuel and servicing will still be utilized for quite some time.
- acdha 12y ago
  I agree that this point is somewhat weak but with fuel it's not so far-fetched to imagine that there will be changes: with a human driver, you have hard limits on the maximum time in motion so there's an upper bound on how much fuel it's worth carrying since you're going to have to stop after a shift anyway. If you have a robot that can drive 16 hours straight, however, it's easy to imagine the incentives pushing companies to explore larger fuel tanks so they can use corporate depots where they can save a few percent on the operating costs.
- geon 12y ago
  > fuel and servicing will still be utilized I'd imagine it would be profitable to install larger gas tanks in autonomous trucks. A human driver would need to stop for breaks anyway, so a huge tank doesn't make sense. With autonomous trucks, there's no reason to stop until you run out of gas. Trucking companies could pretty easily save some money if they have their own private gas stations on the endpoints. Especially since they can make them autonomous as well.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    Autonomous trucks will almost certainly platoon and be much more fuel efficient anyway. That huge truck stop in Tucumcari, NM might survive, but only from selling fuel. Not from all the food and showers and ancillary items.
    - geon 11y ago
      Well, regular gas stations hardly make any profit on gas at all. It is pretty much a service or loss leader to get customers into the store buying coffee and snacks. It might be diffrent for the specialized truck stops.
  - akira2501 12y ago
    > I'd imagine it would be profitable to install larger gas tanks in autonomous trucks. To a point. There are still limits on the total weight of the tractor and trailer (and fuel). So, the more you scale fuel, the less load you can carry. There is a tradeoff, and it's _not_ much more beneficial than where we are today. Considering most trucks take a 300 gallon load out already. That's already 2,600 lbs of fuel or 3% of your total weight limit. If we choose a low value for the average MPG, let's say 5, then those 300 gallons of fuel will get you 1,500 miles. If we choose a high value of 70 miles per hour average speed, then it will take you 21 hours to deplete your fuel. So, when I examine this, I don't see a case for much larger fuel tanks than we have today. The economics and realities of trucking are already very well thought out; more so than most people seem to believe. I've said it before, but short other technological advances and human needs, I think we're at least 20 years away from fully automated trucking.
Zigurd 12y ago
They left out police. Police depend on traffic ticket and parking ticket income. The whole CJ system depends on traffic stops to make drug and other minor crime arrests. That's going away.

peletiah 12y ago

But there will be far fewer cars, as it's no longer necessary to own one. Less parking space, narrower paved roads (Traffic will also be more efficient), less car sustained industry overall.

JetSpiegel 12y ago
Unless you carve out the existing infrastructure, roads won't magically get narrower jsut because they are not used.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  The roads around here seem to get redone every 5-10 years at most, which provides plenty of opportunity to narrow them.

akira2501 12y ago

> On the whole, however, I agree with the initial point about how the peripheral economies built around servicing human truck drivers on their routes will take a hit. I'm thinking of all the towns on the way to Watertown from Minneapolis that would probably evaporate if they didn't have the trucks running the daily on the 212. Are they going to stop the trucks? Are self driving trucks going to be able to carry more load? Are we going to change highway rules to allow more than 80k pounds total weight for a single tractor/trailer? Are the trucks going to be electric or have vastly improved MPG? No. So there will still be the same amount of truck traffic as well as the same amount of fuel being sold in nearly the same locations. Perhaps restaurants will take a hit, but fuel and servicing will still be utilized for quite some time.

acdha 12y ago
I agree that this point is somewhat weak but with fuel it's not so far-fetched to imagine that there will be changes: with a human driver, you have hard limits on the maximum time in motion so there's an upper bound on how much fuel it's worth carrying since you're going to have to stop after a shift anyway. If you have a robot that can drive 16 hours straight, however, it's easy to imagine the incentives pushing companies to explore larger fuel tanks so they can use corporate depots where they can save a few percent on the operating costs.
geon 12y ago
> fuel and servicing will still be utilized I'd imagine it would be profitable to install larger gas tanks in autonomous trucks. A human driver would need to stop for breaks anyway, so a huge tank doesn't make sense. With autonomous trucks, there's no reason to stop until you run out of gas. Trucking companies could pretty easily save some money if they have their own private gas stations on the endpoints. Especially since they can make them autonomous as well.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  Autonomous trucks will almost certainly platoon and be much more fuel efficient anyway. That huge truck stop in Tucumcari, NM might survive, but only from selling fuel. Not from all the food and showers and ancillary items.
  - geon 11y ago
    Well, regular gas stations hardly make any profit on gas at all. It is pretty much a service or loss leader to get customers into the store buying coffee and snacks. It might be diffrent for the specialized truck stops.
- akira2501 12y ago
  > I'd imagine it would be profitable to install larger gas tanks in autonomous trucks. To a point. There are still limits on the total weight of the tractor and trailer (and fuel). So, the more you scale fuel, the less load you can carry. There is a tradeoff, and it's _not_ much more beneficial than where we are today. Considering most trucks take a 300 gallon load out already. That's already 2,600 lbs of fuel or 3% of your total weight limit. If we choose a low value for the average MPG, let's say 5, then those 300 gallons of fuel will get you 1,500 miles. If we choose a high value of 70 miles per hour average speed, then it will take you 21 hours to deplete your fuel. So, when I examine this, I don't see a case for much larger fuel tanks than we have today. The economics and realities of trucking are already very well thought out; more so than most people seem to believe. I've said it before, but short other technological advances and human needs, I think we're at least 20 years away from fully automated trucking.

Zigurd 12y ago

They left out police. Police depend on traffic ticket and parking ticket income. The whole CJ system depends on traffic stops to make drug and other minor crime arrests. That's going away.