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Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

It's not really the vehicles.

It's the loading docks, the fueling stations, the truck scales and all the rest of the infrastructure that supports trucking.

All of those are going to need to have "automated truck" support as well, not to mention, when an 18 wheeler blows out a tire, you need some skills to bring the truck to a successful stop, but even more skills and equipment to effect the repair.

Mining operations are easier because they work on their own property and aren't required to mix with other passenger vehicles.

I know you said "eventually," but I suspect that it's going to take at least 50 years before we're anywhere even close.

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> All of those are going to need to have "automated truck" support as well

Do they?

The trucks don't need to automate 100% of tasks for initial implementation, the first ones will be driverless in-between cities (or driver-nap in-between cities) with manned fueling, loading docks, scales, etc.

This will require some changes, but I don't think it will be too much of an issue to move toward full-serve gasoline service in the interim.

> Do they?

If you want them to be economically competitive, then yes.

The largest current expense is the driver salary, mostly due to the low quality of the working conditions and extended stays away from your "home." If you're still carting people around in the truck, then you will have a difficult time competing with large personnel and technology expenses.

What I'm trying to suggest is that a fully automated nation-wide delivery service is going to be exceptionally difficult and will take a long time.

This is mostly from the perspective of OTR/long-haul transportation. You'll likely see faster adoption on smaller scales such as in-city delivery services like grocery delivery and the like. It will blossom outward from there but it's still going to be a very long process.

> If you're still carting people around in the truck, then you will have a difficult time competing with large personnel and technology expenses.

The response would be to have people fixed at these scales/fuel stops/docks that handle what the driver would have been doing.

The idea that you can automate driving a car between cities seems feasible to you (with traffic, and variable weather), but automating fueling doesn't? Really which seems like a more complex task to you?

Loading and unloading the vehicle at docks will adjust to meet a happy medium. As you already mentioned the single biggest expense is the driver, eliminating that is key, everything else will adjust accordingly.

> when an 18 wheeler blows out a tire, you need some skills to bring the truck to a successful stop, but even more skills and equipment to effect the repair.

An automated truck won't need a conventional cab. It could essentially be a powered sled that rigidly attaches to a trailer with much less forward projection. This would be easier to control in emergency stops.

Except that trucks usually don't haul the same trailer day in and day out. Also when a truck is loaded the driver has to check weight, balance and shift the pins around on the trailer and 5th. Who does that what the load shifts because the truck made an evasive maneuver out on the road in bfe middle of Utah? There's a lot of aspects to driving otr that people don't realize. This industry already operates on tight margins so bringing in new tech which may be beneficially in the long run is hard to justify for most small companies and owner operator outfits.

One huge advantage of a self driving truck is it can easily wait 4+ hours for a tow truck to arrive for minor repairs at little cost. Or be swapped out for another rig and hauled off for more major repairs.

If your logistics operation allows for that, sure; most do not. You want to do as much work with as little miles as is possible, so turning the trucks over quickly is important.

There comes a point where industry overhead buffers you.

What I mean by that is if the most cost effective big rig truck gets say 10MPG then that cost gets built into the market rate. If a new truck design gets 15MPG and costs more you can figure out the costs vs what's out on the market and see if it's an improvement.

As to self-driving trucks, sure there are downsides. But, I suspect the net efficiency gains can offset them in most situations. Once most shipping companies switch the downsides will just be 'industry overhead' until their dealt with.

> What I mean by that is if the most cost effective big rig truck gets say 10MPG then that cost gets built into the market rate. If a new truck design gets 15MPG and costs more you can figure out the costs vs what's out on the market and see if it's an improvement.

I see your point, but that's a particularly poor example. Most shippers will pass the fuel costs as a "fuel surcharge" on to the customer. If you're an owner/operator, this is the most lucrative part of the business, and is really the whole reason to be an O&O in the first place. Trucking is just a really strange business.

The amount you tack on as a fuel charge is based on what the market will bare not what your actually paying for fuel.

http://yrc.com/fuel-surcharge-us/ Note there updating there numbers on a weekly basis and they have nothing to do with the actual costs.

   you need some skills to bring the truck to a successful stop

True, but that's skill most drivers don't have. Add in-wheel pressure and temperature sensors-- plus scheduled maintenance checkups and that problem mostly goes away. There are also numerous examples of adaptive control systems landing aircraft after major failures (quadcopters with 3 props, planes with 1 wing) that humans can't handle.

You bring up good difficulties. Still-- most of those problems have solutions and I sure hope it's sooner than 50 years from now we see self-driving long-haul trucks on the road.

> True, but that's skill most drivers don't have. [...] after major failures (quadcopters with 3 props, planes with 1 wing) that humans can't handle.

These are decent examples, but don't most of them only account for the safeyy of the controlled vehicle itself? I mean, it's impressive that a quad copter can land itself after a partial failure, but can it do it over a crowded city? With a hazardous load? Can the control software understand NFPA 704 of it's own cargo, plus the cargo of other vehicles near it and make appropriate decisions? All of this possibly near the maximum weight ratings for it's transportation type?

I'm _all_ for automation, and I think it's the next most logical direction of our society; however, I think people tend to underestimate the totality of challenges involved especially for cargo transport.

No problem was ever solved by trying to solve all other problems at the same time.

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