[HN Gopher] Driverless semis have started running regular longha...
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Driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes
Author : harambae
Score : 45 points
Date : 2025-05-02 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| superkuh wrote:
| It's good they're doing this first in a place that doesn't get
| long term snow accumulation on roads. But eventually there should
| be autonomous vehicle tests in places with non-cherry picked road
| conditions.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Waymo has done winter testing in Buffalo.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| At least for trucking it's viable to cherry pick routes since
| so many endpoints can avoid dense urban areas, extreme rural
| areas, and residential zones.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Hmmmmm.
|
| So we're going to have a _lot_ of people potentially unemployed
| because of this...
| allears wrote:
| At the same time that tariffs slow down the entire trucking
| industry -- truckers are gonna definitely be hurting
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Not to mention the drive to remove the 10s of thousands of
| truck drivers that recently immigrated... E.g.,
|
| https://nypost.com/2025/04/29/us-news/trump-signs-order-
| requ...
|
| https://truckdrivernews.com/new-arkansas-bill-could-make-
| non...
| porphyra wrote:
| There's a national truck driver shortage, with a particular
| lack of young drivers [1]. Perhaps automation technology will
| become widespread just in time for the current generation of
| drivers to retire.
|
| [1] https://www.iru.org/news-resources/newsroom/worse-you-
| though...
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| Survey of trucking company finds shortage of workers. Well I
| for one am shocked!
| lenerdenator wrote:
| "Why is this the case? Why are there so few women and young
| truck drivers? How can we get more of them behind the wheel?"
|
| Well, it's like literally everything else.
|
| Pay more.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Not one mention of pay? Really?
|
| In other news, there is a terrible shortage of Lamborghinis
| at the $30k price point. When will the horror end?
| RankingMember wrote:
| UBI is inevitable imo; we're going to continue to see machines
| replace humans in roles like this.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| The guys with all of the money don't like paying people _now_
| when people actually deliver value with their labor. No way
| they do it once they can just have machines work for them.
|
| Well, not with being asked politely, at least.
| RankingMember wrote:
| > Well, not with being asked politely, at least.
|
| yep, it definitely won't happen politely
| vkou wrote:
| Of all the countries in the world, it definitely won't
| happen in the United States.
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| true, but on the other hand when things get bad enough the
| guillotine plans will probably be open sourced and freely
| shared.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Swarms of murderbots are cheaper than UBI. This is going to
| get ugly.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| Who is going to willingly fund it?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Doubtful. The trucking industry has been screaming for years
| that they can't find enough people, almost every 18-wheeler I
| see on the highway has a "we're hiring" ad on it, and so on.
| This is automation coming in to replace humans who are
| willfully exiting.
| RankingMember wrote:
| They are hiring, but the reason they can't find people isn't
| because there aren't people out there willing to do the job
| if it's fairly compensated. The problem is that trucking has
| lost a ton of upside over the last few decades, particularly
| after the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. Drivers are often paid
| per mile instead of per hour, which means long unpaid periods
| waiting for loads or stuck in traffic.
| imglorp wrote:
| So as usual, "we can't find people" is code for "we tried
| to exploit the workers until they bled and for some reason
| we can't figure out, they went elsewhere."
| RankingMember wrote:
| Bingo. "No one wants to work [for a wage they can't live
| off of with pitiful benefits] anymore!"
| hbsbsbsndk wrote:
| It's an incredibly dangerous job, both in terms of
| chronic health and acute risk.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| You're citing a 45 year old law as the reason why, say 35
| years in the future, it leads to notable shortages of
| people who want to be truck drivers?
|
| Doesn't hold water for me. Do you have some specific idea
| about how this law only had this effect decades after it
| passed?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I've been hearing about the truck driver shortage for >
| 30 years. Back then it may have been more local, though.
| Places like North Dakota have been short of drivers for
| at least 30 years.
| RankingMember wrote:
| The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 deregulated the industry,
| which led to a sharp increase in competition among
| carriers. Over time, this pushed down freight rates and
| put pressure on companies to cut costs at the expense of
| drivers. Many drivers are now classified as independent
| contractors rather than employees, meaning no benefits or
| wage protections.
|
| Obviously this also happened against the background of a
| broader trend towards deregulation that proceeded under
| Reagan, so it's not _just_ that act.
| lewdev wrote:
| Regardless of the pay, I just can't imagine people really
| being excited to drive all day alone. I hate driving and I
| do it as little as possible. People like to be around other
| people when they work too.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Walmart and similar employers have no trouble finding
| drivers. Decent pay, benefits and schedules makes it easy.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Walmart is still hiring drivers, though.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| With 14,000 drivers there's going to be continuous
| turnover.
|
| Edit: Also, Wal-mart's standards are incredibly high --
| several years of clean driving experience. Most
| commercial truck drivers do not meet those standards.
| Despite the high standards, they still readily fill their
| positions. If they were having troubles, they'd lower
| their standards.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It's not as lucrative anymore because the trucks are
| effectively speed limited, location constantly tracked and
| hours micromanaged. Some setups even have a front facing and in
| cabin driver facing camera recording at all times. Also, they
| are paid per mile so the many hours they spend at the loading
| and unloading stations are effectively unpaid.
|
| It's not as lucrative to the folks that enjoyed pretty much
| total freedom outside of the start and end points.
| meta_ai_x wrote:
| That's not how any of this works. Automation like FSD will lead
| to cheaper shipping costs via trucks leading to more Trucks on
| the road and more needing to load/unload and manage last mile
| logistics and driving routes that can't be automated resulting
| in
|
| ... more trucking jobs, more loading/unloading jobs, more FSD
| operations jobs, more truck repair jobs, more software
| engineering jobs
| lewdev wrote:
| This reminds me of how ATMs created more banking jobs because
| people started to use the bank more along with ATMs. ATMs
| handled the simple transactions and tellers dealt with the
| more complex tasks.
|
| We'll see. There will be a loss of little industries that
| depended on truckers though, like truck stops and inns.
|
| I also hope that this results in more jobs that are
| fulfilling.
| hbsbsbsndk wrote:
| Have you been to a bank branch recently? There is almost no
| staff, and to get help you have to call an offshored call
| center.
| cenamus wrote:
| And there's like hardly any branches anymore, used to be
| one in every major village/small town per bank, now
| there's double the people and a third the banks
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "We study teamsters at the dawn of the motor truck, current
| occupations threatened by computerization, and truckers
| dreading robotic trucks. As predicted, wages in threatened
| occupations rise, employment falls, and the occupations become
| 'grayer'. Older workers become more likely to enter and less
| likely to exit the occupation than young ones and sometimes
| even increase in number."
|
| https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2025/program/paper/eT2Ar7T...
| andy99 wrote:
| Curious if there are specific route features that make this
| feasible or not, like traffic conditions or the roads or the
| warehouses on either end.
| vel0city wrote:
| I used to drive this route every few months for many years.
| Lots of seas of warehouses at the edge of both of these metro
| areas. I-45 is in pretty good shape with a lot of recent
| overhauls over the last decade along the whole path. You don't
| need to do any difficult overpasses or interchanges. 99% of
| this is just stay in the right lane and drive straight. You
| could almost do this with just adaptive cruise control. Which I
| mostly did a few times, just turn on cruise control and stay in
| the lane and you're there in a few hours.
| ge96 wrote:
| Tangent
|
| Reminds me of this (automated systems still doing their thing
| after humans are gone)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhRapsbwhqE
| arcsincosin wrote:
| I like the tone of SOLSTICE 5 by P Chadeisson as well:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cntb3wcZdTw
| somethoughts wrote:
| I feel like the ideal scenario would be to prioritize self
| driving truck at set times and set long haul freeways (i.e. Long
| Beach to Las Vegas or Galveston to Dallas) during the night time
| when there is no regular auto traffic - for example from 1 am-6
| am.
|
| That way if a human driver is concerned, they can choose not to
| drive during this period of time.
|
| Perhaps run the trucks in a train style configuration where a
| "conductor" can sit in the lead truck and manage any emergency
| issues that arise (i.e. security, crash or weather related).
|
| If fully autonomous, I could see securing the cargo being real
| issue - what would stop a few cars passage in front of the truck
| and helping themselves to the cargo.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Put the driverless truck in their own roads and you've just
| reinvented the train.
|
| The only difference is how maintenance of the route is paid
| for.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Yes - agreed if we had dedicated truck train roads.
|
| The proposal I would prefer is to do more of a time based
| multiplexing of the road between daytime auto traffic and
| night time truck train traffic. And I'm not saying autos
| couldn't drive at night, just people could decide whether
| they want to trust the autonomous truck software.
|
| As it stands we probably won't get that choice and its just
| shoved upon us.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| In other words, trains
| cenamus wrote:
| Yeah, sounds almost like Musk's hare-brained plan to put
| self-driving teslas (driving with only a couple metres
| separation) in paved tunnels. I guess some people really hate
| sharing the bus/car/train with poor people
| somethoughts wrote:
| Quite the opposite - right now (or at least in the future
| unless interventions are added) poor people have no option
| but to submit themselves to driving sandwiched amongst with
| 10 ton trucks driven by who knows what, vibe coded, beta
| tested, "AI" software.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Slight difference is that there are more lanes and there's
| dual usage (daytime - regular auto access, nighttime - truck
| train access).
|
| The benefit is to utilize existing access rights and
| infrastructure.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| The freight rail network is fairly expansive[0] -- sure not
| as much as the Interstate road network, but has pretty good
| coverage.
|
| The reason trucks are so popular and necessary is because
| they go beyond the interstate highways. Until self-driving
| trucks handle that portion safely and successfully, they're
| not much more useful than trains.
|
| [0] https://external-
| preview.redd.it/VPeHZG0mzsNhJGAHJglxW1jn4Y0...
| slillibri wrote:
| The problem with this is we live in a 24 hour world. When I
| worked 2nd shift, I got out of work at 2am so I would have to
| "choose not to" use the highway to get home. Also, emergency
| vehicles also use highways.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Agree -but the alternative is that at no point does anyone
| get to chose to opt out of driving amongst a sea of 10 ton
| self driving trucks.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| I have some bad news for you: those trucks are eighty
| thousand pounds gross.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if a human driver is concerned, they can choose not to drive
| during this period of time_
|
| Self-driving cars are currently proving safer than manually-
| piloted ones. There isn't a good reason to segregate traffic
| like this.
|
| > _what would stop a few cars passage in front of the truck and
| helping themselves to the cargo_
|
| Why do you think a trucker would risk life or even their truck
| in a highway robbery?
| somethoughts wrote:
| Actually interestingly the primary benefit of doing this
| would actually be trucking companies. The AI software could
| probably work way better and have less liability if not
| having to deal with corner cases of irrational human drivers.
|
| Unfettered access to 5 lanes of freeway.
| mulmen wrote:
| [delayed]
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| There's also a trial of "platooning" of driverless trucks on I-70
| in Ohio and Indiana:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbishop1/2025/04/24/ease-...
|
| A "drivered" lead truck is leading one or more driverless trucks
| in this case.
|
| I drive the stretch of highway these trucks are on fairly
| regularly. I don't know that I've seen a group of them yet but
| I'm keeping my eye out.
|
| I'm probably just showing my age, but I like the idea of a
| "drivered" truck leading driverless trucks versus a completely
| autonomous system. It's similar to my attitude on crewed
| spaceflight-- I like the idea of the ingenuity and capacity for
| independent thought supervising an automated systems, versus
| autonomous automated systems.
| EsotericAlgo wrote:
| This reminds me of an oft recommended book "Digital Apollo".
| One of the driving topics is the human interaction component
| and the difference in designing a fully automated system versus
| one that is designed with an operator that can intervene. If I
| recall correctly, the book presents a dichotomy between the
| rocketeers and pilots (automate entirely and strap people on
| for a ride vs design a system controlled by a human).
|
| I think they both have their place, but I think acknowledging
| it as a system design choice is so helpful even in basic
| business processes (how will I handle exceptions, how will the
| person remember to handle a rare exception).
|
| I find myself thinking of this problem frequently. We have lots
| of modern words for it like observability but I think that
| removes one a bit from the actual problem.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _A "drivered" lead truck is leading one or more driverless
| trucks in this case_
|
| My bet is this goes nowhere. It's a horseless carriage that
| doesn't have enough time to pay itself back versus fully-
| automated platoons with remote back-up.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| It seems like there's an aerodynamic advantage to the
| platoons. Placing an autonomous truck in the lead of one of
| these platoons, down the road, seems like a reasonable
| "upgrade" strategy.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Placing an autonomous truck in the lead of one of these
| platoons, down the road, seems like a reasonable "upgrade"
| strategy_
|
| Sure. I just don't see the time-to-market advantage of
| starting with a human lead outpacing the core technology
| advantage of being fully autonomous from the get go.
| (Counterpoint: Waymo using Uber to manage the front end in
| Atlanta.)
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| next level would be to hook these "platoons" together
| physically and then centralize the propulsion in a super
| efficient package. And then we could move them off the highways
| and onto specialized "tracks" that guarantee they don't deviate
| from the planned routes.
|
| speculative, alien technology, admittedly, but some day our
| scientists will figure it out i bet!
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Hmm. That sounds like it might lead to a monopolization of
| these tracks, as networks consolidate, and then ultimately
| evolve into a stagnant industry more focused on cutting costs
| than innovating...
| xracy wrote:
| I suspect that's why a competent government might invest
| more in these tracks as they might contribute a lot to
| delivery infrastructure. Especially in a consumer-based
| economy where shipping goods is important.
| krapp wrote:
| Let me know where you can find a competent government not
| currently trying to burn down its own consumer-based
| economy with tariffs and xenophobia and which doesn't
| consider trains a communist plot. And whether they take
| American passports.
| robocat wrote:
| I'm not sure governments learn by seeing the mistakes of
| other governments. But consecutive New Zealand
| governments have made some big mistakes. Capitalist party
| sold the national rail to an Australian company because
| rail was inefficient and costing a ton. Privately run cut
| back staff significantly. A few years later the story was
| that that was failing privately run, so the socialist
| party bought it back at exhorbitant cost. Now current
| governmentis trying to sort out a massive budget blow-out
| to get "rail" ferries between North and South Islands
| working (roll-on roll-off). The private ferry
| (Bluebridge) is doing okay I think.
|
| I believe the lesson is that rail sucks here,
| economically speaking (whether privately run or publicly
| run). Unfortunately old voters love rail so the
| politicians pander to them.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| dammit
| nadir_ishiguro wrote:
| Ah, you're thinking of the world famous Las Vegas Hyperloop!
| msla wrote:
| Sounds like something that would require a lot of
| infrastructure that wouldn't make a lot of sense to build in
| the most rural areas of a country, unlike roads which can be
| quite cost-effective even without towns nearby.
| istjohn wrote:
| Someone should develop an ad-hoc platooning network for
| truckers. Install a platooning cruise control package on your
| rig and then get an alert on your dash when another truck in
| the network is in your vicinity looking to platoon. Lock in the
| cruise control behind the lead vehicle, and the app
| automatically calculates the fuel savings and divides the
| savings equally between the operators.
| mulmen wrote:
| [delayed]
| kgwxd wrote:
| Just as there's about to be nothing to ship
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