[HN Gopher] Trucking's uneasy relationship with new tech
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Trucking's uneasy relationship with new tech
Author : fidotron
Score : 21 points
Date : 2025-07-21 23:44 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| sbashyal wrote:
| Shameless Plug: I am building Proma.ai and one of the use cases
| we are pursuing is trucking freight operations management. I
| would love to chat with others in this space - both builders and
| buyers.
| pixl97 wrote:
| In the same note of tech in trucking, the large truck
| manufactures have started 'John Deere-ing' their equipment and
| making more electronically integrated, non user replicable, non-
| standard parts.
|
| The newer parts typically are lighter, which means less fuel
| usage and room for actual cargo. At the same time, if the part
| breaks in 100,000 miles and costs an arm and a leg to replace the
| owner/operator doesn't gain anything but paying the manufacture
| more of an ownership tax.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| The future of trucking probably involves neither truckers and nor
| any fuel. Battery electric trucks are already taking over. And
| autonomous driving trucks without a driver seems like it is a
| matter of time. That eliminates the two most expensive cost
| factors in trucking.
|
| Of course this won't happen overnight. But it will probably be
| happening faster than some might expect. Cost saving potential is
| going to be the main reason. Trucks use a lot of fuel, and at the
| rate they are using it, it adds up to quite a lot of money. Tens
| of thousands of dollar per year. 50K$ is fairly average. The only
| thing more expensive is the driver. Getting rid of both, adds up
| to meaningful savings.
| bombcar wrote:
| Is the electricity meaningfully cheaper?
| bgnn wrote:
| Yes.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Within a margin of error, yeah.
|
| LTL (Less than load) will probably still have human drivers for
| high value time sensitive materials, but most things should be
| loaded onto a train and hauled close to their destination where
| a short truck can pick up from the train yard and haul the last
| few miles to the customer.
|
| Of course, if we spent the money to build a few high speed
| cross country trains we could save so much money and reduce the
| environmental impact of thousands of 18 wheelers and their
| exhaust and tires and highway damage.
|
| We would need 5 of them, one from Maine to Washington, one from
| Atlanta to Los Angeles, one from Los Angeles to Seattle, one
| from Miami to Bangor, Maine, and one from McAllen to Winnipeg,
| CA.
|
| It's be a great way to spend $250 billion dollars and would
| make so many people wealthy and improve the lives of all
| Americans and many non-Americans in measurable ways.
| barney54 wrote:
| The U.S. has the best freight rail system in the world, it
| passenger rail sucks. Why spend money on freight rail?
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I wonder if we will see trucker on self driving truck violence
| during the switchover. My bet is yes. I think this will be the
| first space where those replaced physically fight back.
| barney54 wrote:
| Battery electric trucks aren't ready for over over-the-road
| trucking. They hardly even make sense for drayage currently.
| throw0101d wrote:
| Recommend the book _Data driven: truckers, technology, and the
| new workplace surveillance_ by Karen Levy:
|
| > _Long-haul truckers are the backbone of the American economy,
| transporting goods under grueling conditions and immense economic
| pressure. Truckers have long valued the day-to-day independence
| of their work, sharing a strong occupational identity rooted in a
| tradition of autonomy. Yet these workers increasingly find
| themselves under many watchful eyes. Data Driven examines how
| digital surveillance is upending life and work on the open road,
| and raises crucial questions about the role of data collection in
| broader systems of social control._
|
| > _Karen Levy takes readers inside a world few ever see, painting
| a bracing portrait of one of the last great American frontiers.
| Federal regulations now require truckers to buy and install
| digital monitors that capture data about their locations and
| behaviors. Intended to address the pervasive problem of trucker
| fatigue by regulating the number of hours driven each day, these
| devices support additional surveillance by trucking firms and
| other companies. Traveling from industry trade shows to law
| offices and truck-stop bars, Levy reveals how these invasive
| technologies are reconfiguring industry relationships and
| providing new tools for managerial and legal control--and how
| truckers are challenging and resisting them._
|
| * https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175300/da...
|
| Interview on Bloomberg's _Odd Lots_ podcast:
|
| > _Thanks to work from home, and other trends, workers are being
| electronically monitored by their bosses like never before. But
| some industries have had experience with this for awhile. Truck
| drivers, in particular, have been under legally-required
| electronic monitoring for several years now. Not only are their
| hours and miles electronically logged, increasingly they 're
| subject to facial cameras and other types of body monitoring. On
| this episode, we speak with Karen Levy, a professor at Cornell
| and the author of "Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New
| Workplace Surveillance" to discuss how surveillance works within
| the trucking industry, and what it means for everyone else._
|
| * https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-truckers-already-...
|
| * Also:
| http://archive.is/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-o...
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