Automated electric long-haul trucking looks good but there's an issue that requires an on-board human: self-driving at present only makes sense for long steady stretches of freeway, say I80 through Nevada and so on. Even though that's the majority of the travel time, human drivers will be needed for:
(1) 'the last few miles' i.e dealing with local complexity at delivery points, and
(2) unexpected emergencies (flat tires, etc.) and general maintenance.
Something like a remote drone operator probably wouldn't work(for changing tires etc.) or be completely reliable (disconnecting in a snowstorm etc.).
However, this could be an attractive work situation for many people. If you have an 8-hour straight automated run with a truck cabin, the operator can sleep, study, write code... hopefully something more productive than online games, anyway. Supplemental earnings could be possible.
This also benefits the trucking companies as they can plausibly run trucks on much longer 20+ driving / day schedules, since operators can sleep on the automated streches of the freeways.
You can also run convoys with one team per 5 trucks. They will want to maintain a person in the loop if only for protecting from highway robbers. What happens if two cars ride side by side in two lanes, force the truck to stop and steal the load?
(1) 'the last few miles' i.e dealing with local complexity at delivery points, and
(2) unexpected emergencies (flat tires, etc.) and general maintenance.
Something like a remote drone operator probably wouldn't work(for changing tires etc.) or be completely reliable (disconnecting in a snowstorm etc.).
However, this could be an attractive work situation for many people. If you have an 8-hour straight automated run with a truck cabin, the operator can sleep, study, write code... hopefully something more productive than online games, anyway. Supplemental earnings could be possible.
This also benefits the trucking companies as they can plausibly run trucks on much longer 20+ driving / day schedules, since operators can sleep on the automated streches of the freeways.