It seems evident to me that once these machines prove their value in both safety and efficiency, the companies that insure trucking firms will compel/persuade them to switch from human to self-driven vehicles.<p>These machines can safely convoy closely in one lane leaving other lanes free, will obey traffic laws and courtesy rules, and never get sleepy.<p>The disruption of the trucking industry is one that we will have to watch closely for its likely economic and political effects.
The US trucking industry is ripe for disruption. The role of a driver is minimal as it is: s/he has to just steer the truck along the highway, with periodic fuel stops. There's nothing preventing an automated system from doing the same. Self-driving cars may be years away, but self-driving trucks which automatically attach themselves to trailers, drive 2500 miles and drop them off, only to do the same in return, 24x7 ? That'll be huge.
When you see how crowded European truck stops are you realize that parking a truck there is probably the ultimate challenge for an autonomous driving system.<p>This system might allow two drivers to drive a convoy of maybe six trucks across a long distance of highway, but it doesn't provide much benefit over the existing road-trains that they use in Australia - and they've never been used in Europe.<p>It's still exciting and amazing though.
The thing that strikes me about this is less to do with highway safety and more "how many assets can a company put in the hands of one human to guard?". It seems like it would be none too difficult for hijackers to box off the tail end vehicle and slow it to a halt giving them ample time to loot it before the driver even got a chance to stop the rest of the convoy. The looters could be gone without even needing to confront the driver.<p>Worrying.
I've wondered why rail isn't automated. Trains have accidents but they have a (mostly) 1D, simple existence. Cars and trucks are mostly 2D, with many more variables and one-off situations. Fix rail accidents and you get a huge win.
What if one car merges infront of one of the following trucks and slows down a bit? What do these trucks do at construction sites (we have quite A few of those on German autobahns)?<p>This technology looks hardly any better then Tesla's lane keeping assistant, the speed is set by the driver (it doesn't really matter if the speed is set by the driver in the very first vehicle IMO), and It only handles very simple roads
Each truck in the platoon needs to be able to drive competently on its own, right? I don't think one driver can change lanes for an entire platoon, and each truck will have to adjust its speed to allow for other cars merging in and out.<p>If that's the case, why plan to have a driver at all? Just for navigational purposes?
i was just wondering about the distance between these vehicles, and if that really would add up to some amount of finite-non-zero fuel savings as well ? for example, the lead vehicle just pushes the air away, and the rest following close by in the "slip-stream" experience less overall air resistance...
Totally pointless. I like truck drivers driving trucks . Not out of work angry and with nothing to do . Ohh and on a sid driverless trucks sound a lot like a train . Why not just use freight trains ?