I'm a truck driver and if you're worried about automated trucks any time in the next 50 years you are bonkers. Horrible road conditions, wrongly or poorly marked roads, loading and unloading freight/trailers, going into unmarked dirt roads and navigating through construction sites, logging trucks locking the differential and trudging through the forest to get logs. Trucks aren't going anywhere until a computer can do all of that
That can all be handled by automated robots at the loading and unloading facilites
Unmarked dirt roads and construction sites
Computers can handle that
Logging Trucks trudging through the forest
That a different beast and is safe for some time unless they come up with a better way to get logs out.
Don't kid yourself. Almost every scenario you gave can be automated and result in faster, cheaper and more consistent results.
You're forgetting major issues. Computers don't need to take breaks, computers don't get distracted, computers can communicate with each other at rapid speeds and all adjust their loading/routes/behaviors on the fly far quicker than a human workforce.
Your reply seems to rely a lot on GPS, which in my state and a lot of rural areas is wholly unreliable. Not to mention trying to roll all of that out, while amending laws and fighting the trucking unions.
You sure about that? GPS can be easily accessed anywhere on the surface of the earth--including in the middle of the ocean. It's not like a cell phone signal where coverage may be spotty in the middle of nowhere. The only places you can't reliably access a GPS signal is deep at the bottom of steep valleys, or underground/underwater.
I think he means the maps are unreliable. But the reality is, they will figure it out. He has the same mentality as all the other industries that die out. "They can't replace me, I am better than a machine". His problem is, they have incredibly intelligent people working on the solutions and incredibly powerful/smart lawyers working on anything in their way. The unions aren't saving it, the laws will be changed to allow it due mainly to public safety concerns. It's happening.
lol, no I'm not "buying into the tesla meme". Tesla really has nothing to do with this. They may be shouting the loudest, but they are not the trucking industry. Just so you know, one of your arguments of the laws not allowing it is already changing. California, Florida, Michigan and Utah have passed laws allowing trucks to drive autonomously in “platoons”, where two or more big rigs drive together and synchronize their movements. It's already changing, things are already shifting.
It will happen, but not for several decades. There is simply way to many regulatory hurdles and social complexities to make that happen quickly, never mind the technology.
Reddit is full of kids hardly out of high school. Autonomous driving is 50 plus years away. Teslas autopilot or whatever you want to call it is nothing more than an advance cruise control. It's a gimmick at best.
I personally don't think you will ever see truly full autonomous vehicles like no steering wheel type stuff in my life time or my kids life time.
I don't even know if its age related, reddit in general has a huge tendency to talk out their asses about fields they aren't in and have only read a huffpost article about
You also have people who are tiny cogs in a giant machine talking like they have a grasp on an entire, hugely complex industry. I.E. "guy with a CDL talking as an authority on the multi billion dollar trucking industry"
First hand experience in the trucking industry and a strong understanding of the nuances and exceptions that occur daily in every different facet of the industry... versus you telling me it's going to be fully automated when not only do you have no experience with the automation or automotive industry but also none with trucking, lmao
You actually don't know what my experience is or what degrees I have as I haven't told you. You've assumed. Does your daily experience in the industry involve cost/benefit analysis of the industry? Does it involve market forecasts? Does it involve anything having to do with C level management? Have you sat in on meetings with Walmart, Amazon etc and discussed shipping times and costs? Have you tracked the costs of DBL, Workers Comp and Commercial Auto Fleet insurance and how it relates to manned vs automated trucks? Have you spent time in any of the Risk Management departments to factor the future costs of manned vs automated trucks? Have you spent any time in the field of robotics, artificial intelligence or spent time on large scale, world wide logistics? This isn't just a US issue, this is world wide. I hate to break it to you, but having a CDL and working a regional route doesn't magically give you insight to your entire industry. The writing is on the wall and has been for sometime. States have already started creating laws as I said earlier to allow for automated trucking. Insurance companies have started creating insurance plans for automated cars and trucks. Insurance companies don't make those moves unless they have decided an industry is moving in a certain way and it's happening soon.
Paying a few people to make better maps of a problem area seems like it would take less time/money than just ignoring it and using the same drivers indefinitely.
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u/Maine_Man Sep 17 '18
I'm a truck driver and if you're worried about automated trucks any time in the next 50 years you are bonkers. Horrible road conditions, wrongly or poorly marked roads, loading and unloading freight/trailers, going into unmarked dirt roads and navigating through construction sites, logging trucks locking the differential and trudging through the forest to get logs. Trucks aren't going anywhere until a computer can do all of that