Autonomous Trucks Are Coming: 2023

Autonomous vehicles get a massive amount of attention. This is led, of course, by the focus upon Tesla. While they are the undisputed leader in autonomous vehicle technology, they might not be the first one to market with something that is regularly used on a wide scale.

This title might end up going to companies in the trucking industry. While Tesla seeks to build a large scale autonomous network, it might be tied up with regulators for a number of years.

The trucking industry, in contrast, seeks to implement something that is more structured and a lot easier to design.

On The Highways By 2023

In an announcement, Federal Express and PACCAR are collaborating on bringing autonomous trucking to the highways of the United States. If all goes well, the collaboration will be a full-fledged company by 2023, operating across the country.

For now, the vehicles will have a safety driver in them. The first route will be the route from Dallas to Houson.

This week, we begin our commercial pilot with FedEx. We’ll be regularly and autonomously hauling FedEx loads with a safety driver between Dallas and Houston, a 500-mile round trip along the I-45 corridor. Our pilot with FedEx and PACCAR demonstrates how we’re progressing and advancing through the Aurora Driver Development Program as we’re now in the exciting phase of “Refine and Pilot.”

Driving on a highway is much easier than around town. For trucking, the advantage is the long distance journeys really wear on the drivers. This is something that is being looked at to ease the burden. Presently, there is a shortage of long-haul truckers.

At the end of 2023, we will launch our trucking business and haul loads autonomously between terminals without a safety driver. Developing our trucking service and Driver-as-a-Service business model alongside a trusted network that understands how to safely optimize logistics through efficiency and speed primes us to build a more deeply integrated service with the Aurora Driver for fleets safely and quickly.

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If this technology can be on the road by 2023, it will radically alter the movement of cargo around the United States (World). We will see costs drop a great deal while the employment situation would completely shift.

Depending upon how if advances, we will likely see most drivers used for local deliveries. This is where the technology will lag. There is a lot less required for highway driving. At the same time, this alleviates the bulk of the " heavy lifting" as they say. Those who do local deliveries can be at home at night while keeping reasonable hours.

Radical Change In Cargo

This is one of those situations that will radically change the way society operates. It is fun to watch something take place right before our eyes.

Presently, most cargo is moved on train. It is the most economical way to transport goods. Hence, cargo, either in cargo crates or the trailer of trucks, are loaded on trains and moved to different cargo centers. From there, it is unloaded and trucked to the local destinations.

Here we have one of those situations where a technological advancement is set to completely disrupt another industry. If we get a fleet of autonomous trucks moving around the country, the need to ship things on train is reduced. Presently the cost, with a driver, is more than triple that on the train. The economics totally change when the driver is removed. Since these vehicles will also be electric, the cost is actually cheaper than on the train.

Consider for a second how much value there is presently in the publicly traded railroad companies. This is one of the more established industries that has not faced a threat of disruption since the United States was first crossed with rails more than 150 years ago. This could be changing over the next few years.

We see how powerful technology can be. It is often not the impact upon the most obvious industry but elsewhere. Few, at this moment, consider autonomous vehicles to be a grave threat to the railroad industry but it is.

The advantage that autonomous electric trucks will have, in addition to cost, is that they can be directed locally. Trains can only go where the tracks are laid. It means that trucks end up being involved in the process anyway.

Removing the driver also increases the time a truck can operate. There are a number of regulations that limit how many hours a driver can operate a vehicle in a day. Without the human, this is lifted. On a cross country trip, as an example, the truck can go, only stopping for recharging. Outside of that, while on the highway, the truck just "keeps on trucking".

We are getting closer. People often think major technological changes are years away. Here is one that we will likely see within the next 18 months.

The next 20 years are going to see a number of breakthroughs which changes the face of society. This is one of them.

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