how far are we still from looking at a fully self driving car
While on one hand, pretty far, on the other I don’t see why they’re not common. We’ve had a few geo-fenced pilots of self-driving cars with mixed results, but the money is in trucking. I would have expected there to be trucking pilots, such as on fixed routes, in convoy, or even remotely piloted within distribution centers.
Good points. There have been tests on self driving trucks, but not much more. My opinion is that the tools are not mature enough, and the industry is not willing to risk putting trucks on the road that may get stuck in the middle of the trip, because there is a roadblock and it cannot circumvent it, or that it goes on big detours because it somehow sees non-existing roadblocks.
Also there is still a problem of liability. If a truck fails to give way to an ambulance or a firefighter truck, or if it gets in an accident, who is responsible? The manufacturer in theory, unless they waive responsibility to the owner of the truck, and in that case what company would risk their face and money on a technology that has not proven itself?
All in all, at the moment I see a lot of reasons to doubt the technology, and few reasons to embrace it, unless it becomes trustworthy enough that it is economically viable.
Ps. Putting trucks on a fixed route, in a convoy, feels a lot like re-inventing the train haha
The benefits of a convoy (or road train 😆 ): there’s still a driver to take the fall, but they only need to be in the lead truck. Or if the convoys are longer, take another page from actual trains and also pay for a guy in the caboose to make sure the train stays together
While on one hand, pretty far, on the other I don’t see why they’re not common. We’ve had a few geo-fenced pilots of self-driving cars with mixed results, but the money is in trucking. I would have expected there to be trucking pilots, such as on fixed routes, in convoy, or even remotely piloted within distribution centers.
Good points. There have been tests on self driving trucks, but not much more. My opinion is that the tools are not mature enough, and the industry is not willing to risk putting trucks on the road that may get stuck in the middle of the trip, because there is a roadblock and it cannot circumvent it, or that it goes on big detours because it somehow sees non-existing roadblocks.
Also there is still a problem of liability. If a truck fails to give way to an ambulance or a firefighter truck, or if it gets in an accident, who is responsible? The manufacturer in theory, unless they waive responsibility to the owner of the truck, and in that case what company would risk their face and money on a technology that has not proven itself?
All in all, at the moment I see a lot of reasons to doubt the technology, and few reasons to embrace it, unless it becomes trustworthy enough that it is economically viable.
Ps. Putting trucks on a fixed route, in a convoy, feels a lot like re-inventing the train haha
The benefits of a convoy (or road train 😆 ): there’s still a driver to take the fall, but they only need to be in the lead truck. Or if the convoys are longer, take another page from actual trains and also pay for a guy in the caboose to make sure the train stays together