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End of the road for truckers?

I'm cool with anything that helps to sink CSX. Those fuckers' ability to legally ignore virtually all public and private property rights is absurd.
 
I'm cool with anything that helps to sink CSX. Those fuckers' ability to legally ignore virtually all public and private property rights is absurd.

Have had multiple dealings with CSX as an attorney, both transactional and litigation. They are huge assholes. Would love to see them fall someday.
 
“The conditions of the road out there, you’ve got to have your wits about you,” he says. “An automated truck would probably have a hissy fit, where a human would realise, ‘OK, I might have to detour off-road into the gully to get around it.’

“Truckies can use their sense of smell, too. If the engine starts to get hot, you can smell the coolant and go, ‘Hang on, something’s going on here,’ [and] pull over before something catastrophic happens.”

I feel bad for this guy.

So how to autonomous trucks handle fueling? Would they drive point to point between human manned fueling stations or would it be like it Cars where they just drive on a pedal and it happens automatically?
 
“The conditions of the road out there, you’ve got to have your wits about you,” he says. “An automated truck would probably have a hissy fit, where a human would realise, ‘OK, I might have to detour off-road into the gully to get around it.’

“Truckies can use their sense of smell, too. If the engine starts to get hot, you can smell the coolant and go, ‘Hang on, something’s going on here,’ [and] pull over before something catastrophic happens.”

I feel bad for this guy.

So how to autonomous trucks handle fueling? Would they drive point to point between human manned fueling stations or would it be like it Cars where they just drive on a pedal and it happens automatically?


Yeah, really. He is pretty clueless about the capabilities of a computer engine monitoring system. Several dozen or hundreds of sensors could be built into the engine and other components to monitor engine temperature, tire pressures (no more tire pieces from dual wheel tires run flat until they come apart.)

Refueling could be handled either way you describe. Totally automated. Or with a return to the pump jockey of the last century and New Jersey.

Another saving that could come about from self driving trucks is elimination of the cab and windshield area where the driver sees out. Compact all that stuff so it fits below the front of the trailer and get a bigger trailer that is on top of the tractor. Cab could have pylons with an array of road sensors at its front, but not much more in front of the cargo trailer.
Than attach to sensor system array on the trailer(s). Two 48 foot trailers in tandem in a 100 foot total package.

Could easily have steerable wheels in the middle of the longer tandems to make them more maneuverable. That's a job that no human would or could do, but a computer would be great at.
 
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/18/bui...ion-from-nea-for-autonomous-construction.html

Ready-Campbell, whose dad was a general contractor, is getting in on the action and taking advantage of the dramatic advances in automation to go after construction. For the past two years, he's been developing software and sensors that can turn off-the-shelf excavators into robots that can dig holes with precision for hours without a break.
From a small dirt field in a sparsely populated part of San Francisco, Ready-Campbell's 10-person start-up, Built Robotics, has been stealthily operating a retrofitted skid steer, directing it via a computer program to move around dirt.

Be sure to watch the video.
 
Maybe what he means is that the truck itself is electronically programmed to "stay in its lane" i.e. it gets on the highway and drives the same route over and over again, so all it has to do is brake and turn off at the correct exit. that technology already exists and is actually fairly old news (Tesla autopilot).

From what I have read, if the autopilots find themselves in a situation they can't handle, like blinding weather, they pull over and stop until conditions improve or a human takes over. Some articles indicate that there will be a period when drivers are in the cab but not driving, i.e. they are only there to take over if there is a problem. Depending on how regulations change (i.e., is the driver allowed to sleep while the autopilot is moving?) even that could significantly decrease trucker employment.

While a lot of this is true many companies will still have to have drivers physically in the truck to do the manual part of the delivery once the truck arrives at it's intended location. As someone who works in the trucking industry, it's amazing how far behind the rest of the world it is technologically. Many companies are just now getting outfitted with ELD's due to the impending regulations. Any type of change has been fought tooth and nail for years. Lot's of companies just don't want to change and they will get left behind.
 
Why would someone need to ride in the truck to do the manual part? Couldn't those people just be at the point of delivery?
 
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Why would someone need to ride in the truck to do the manual part? Couldn't those people just be at the point of delivery?

depends on the type of product/delivery; not large 18 wheelers moving stuff between warehouses but most trucking is Final Mile stuff, dropping off pallets of stuff at retail level
 
Why would someone need to ride in the truck to do the manual part? Couldn't those people just be at the point of delivery?

You could, but lots of companies would rather hire a trucking company to unload than hire unreliable part time off loaders. Plus you then have more specialized deliveries involving chemicals, gas, biomedical and batch process goods that must remain clean etc. I don't believe the end consumer is going to hire/train additional personnel to handle that unload/load. At least not from what I've seen over the past 6 years in the industry. And that's before even getting into the fact that insurance companies are going to take a long, long time to insure a truck not driven by human + no human in the truck at all.
 
Makes sense. Thanks.
 
In an expansion from personal vehicles, Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled an electric semitractor-trailer Thursday that has a 500-mile range on a single charge and is electronically connected with a fleet's management system. The vehicle allows the driver to stand and puts the steering wheel in the center with a touchscreen panel on both sides of the driver. Musk said the truck is set to go into production in 2019, although the company has fallen far behind on its production schedule for the Model 3 mass market consumer vehicles.
Tesla shares closed up 0.8 percent Friday.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services announced earlier on Friday it has reserved "multiple" new electric semis just unveiled by Elon Musk.
A company could save tens of thousands of dollars if the Tesla Semi is, as Musk said, 25 cents cheaper to operate per mile than a standard diesel truck.
The average number of miles driven a year per large truck is just over 100,000, according to industry analysts. That means each Tesla Semi could save a company at least $25,000 a year.



https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...slas-new-electric-tractor-trailers/ar-BBF5MuO
 
Interested to see how long it takes to recharge one of those. That may be a big hindrance to some fleets that are slip seated. Love all the stuff they are trying at Tesla though, is just going to make everyone else up their game.
 
A quick Google search says 30 min charge for 400 miles. That's pretty good.
 
A quick Google search says 30 min charge for 400 miles. That's pretty good.

Lot better than I would have thought. Charging that quickly would make it a much more viable option to most fleets than anything else that's been offered up.
 
If I get motivated this weekend I'll post some thoughts about why true autonomous cars and trucks are at least 25 or 30 years away...not anything earth shattering, just math and money being the limiting factors. The technology is not quite what it is sold to be yet either and some of the hurdles are going to require significant (but not insurmountable) additional tech investments. Anyway, interesting article here about trucking and gas vs electric - may require a subscription though. Discusses Warren Buffet's investment in Pilot J https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffett-bets-on-the-fossil-fuel-highway-1507324006

Don't think we are allowed to print full subscription articles but two paragraphs of note:

A sucker is born every minute, and Warren Buffett just proved it. He agreed to spend an undisclosed sum of his shareholders’ money to buy a controlling stake in Pilot Flying J, the truck-stop chain that sells food, coffee and diesel fuel to truckers. But aren’t truckers about to be replaced by robots, and diesel by battery power?

The Journal, leaning against the wind, recently showed how Amazon and e-commerce were associated with increased overall employment. The panic about displaced truck drivers is likely to prove even more badly overstated. On present trends, robots in the U.S. won’t be putting people out of work. They will be making up for a labor shortage. Truck drivers have been in short supply for more than a decade.
 
Last sentence is completely true. If I could find 40 qualified drivers to hire right now i'd do it. If the technological upgrades allow for companies to hire drivers without X years driving experience and teach them how to operate an autonomous vehicle it would be a huge boost for the industry (assuming the insurance companies would allow it, thats the big driver here IMO).
 
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