The future of the trucking industry.

Imagine looking in your rear view mirror and seeing a 70 thousand pound 18-wheeler behind you, without anyone at the wheel. Well we are pretty much there, because right now there is a company making self-driving trucks. Aurora Innovation already has autonomous trucks cruising the highway just with a babysitter at the wheel. They are building self-driving technology sensors that track what’s going on around the truck and on-board. The computer not only drives, it does so as politely as possible so it won’t freak out anyone else on the road. Combination of hardware software and data services that allows you essentially operate vehicles autonomously. These trucks all share a common robot brain and that brain has driven 5 million real world miles. Every time one truck drives, they all get smarter so it really understands the world based on all of the experiences that it’s been through. Whatever it’s likely to see, anything that it has encountered either in the real world or in simulation or something similar, it will know how to handle that situation because it’s encountered it before.

For the moment, two experienced drivers are part of every ride. The driver watches the road, while the co-pilot watches the software and describes what’s coming next. The co-pilot watches how the Aurora software is perceiving the world and how it’s making decisions, also the co-pilot keeps the driver updated on it constantly. These trucks just began driving between Dallas and Houston for FedEx, by the end of 2023, the company says they won’t have anyone inside, but while this is cool technology it’s really a reflection of a labor issue. The trucking industry predicts a shortage of 160 thousand truck drivers by the year 2030. Labor experts say it’s not a lack of willing drivers, they blame deregulation in the 1980s which turned steady trucking jobs into contractor work with lower wages and tougher working conditions. It’s probably not the job you want to go into, 40 years from now, robotic trucks could eventually spell the end of traditional trucking jobs.

For Aurora, it’s not about whether it is cheaper or more expensive to have a self-driving truck instead of a human driver. They don’t really think about it that way, they think about the value that it brings to the market. The Aurora driver is going to be able to drive for 20 hours a day basically until the gas runs out. The implications of technology like this go on and on, it could help solve the supply chain issues. It might end one whole human occupation while creating a new one for the lucky few and soon enough one lane of your nearest highway, may be an endless wall of robot trucks.

Self-driving vehicles could not be used for local delivery in the near future, but for long haul between service centers, and probably only on interstates. Local drivers will drop off trailers at a service center, pick up a new local trailer(s) and deliver them. Drivers will all work local, and go home at the end of their shift. Autonomous trucks will pick up trailers and deliver them to a distant service center, drop the trailers off, where local drivers will take them to their final destination. Service centers will be built just off major freeways, outside of major population centers, with facilities to service the trucks, fuel, tires, computer modules, software diagnostics, etc. Truck stops would no longer be needed, but they could be converted to service centers fairly easily.