
Self-driving truck delivers butter from California to Pennsylvania in three days - jelliclesfarm
https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2019/12/10/a-self-driving-truck-delivered-butter-from-california-to-pennsylvania-in-three-days/
======
Tempest1981
For better or worse, millions of truck drivers are going to be displaced. Just
like the way robots replaced manufacturing jobs.

The best plan is to prepare, like Yang and others are saying:
[https://www.yang2020.com/policies/trucking-
czar/](https://www.yang2020.com/policies/trucking-czar/)

So we can soften the blow.

~~~
duelingjello
We need to create lots of jobs in other industries that allow living wages
without a college degree.

The government should massively incentivize:

\- solar farms

\- wind turbines

\- battery storage deployments

\- residential solar w/ batteries and grid-down operation (most grid-tied
virtual battery solar stops working completely in a power outage)

\- achieve fusion power net output

\- elderly and disabled caregivers

\- offer an option to teach and mentor people the fundamentals of running a
successful small business (expanding SBA/SCORE)

\- give people a chance to showcase, see and try out different industries

\- setup a factory incubator to allow bootstrapping and designing efficient,
streamlined operations for quality products made in the US at globally-
competitive prices.

Investing in people and infrastructure brings lots of indirect returns. Do
everything possible to help people to succeed and have a future.

~~~
bagacrap
These don't sound like drop in replacements for truck driving. A truck driver
might not be able-bodied enough to install solar panels, might not be willing
to take the pay cut or move to a new state where the job is.

~~~
triceratops
> might not be willing to take the pay cut

A paying job is better than no job. And there is such a thing as minimum wage.
And no reason to assume it'll necessarily be a pay cut. EDIT: And according to
another comment further down this thread, trucker jobs don't even pay all that
well.

> move to a new state where the job is.

Because that's worse than being away from home/family for long periods of
time? I don't understand this logic.

------
melling
“the truck drove mostly autonomously.”

That last 10% is going to be a lot of work.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-
ninety_rule](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-ninety_rule)

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
I'll take a 90% efficiency gain any day. If they can drive I-70 from SF to NYC
with no human, or the 10 from Florida to California, that seems like a win,
even if the person has to drive in the city. Warehousing will just get shifted
around to work with where the trucks can safely drive.

~~~
joe_the_user
_I 'll take a 90% efficiency gain any day._

If you need a safety driver 100% of the time, the net gain in efficiency is
0%.

Edit: There's no comment in the article about there being period with no
safety driver.

~~~
nwallin
If it's one safety driver monitoring 4 vehicles it's still a win.

~~~
joe_the_user
But that isn't what the article talked about either (A European company did do
a run like that a while though).

It did talk about "level 4 autonomy" based on a single drive with no
disengagements (they mentioned they'd made a lot of drives but didn't mention
their disengagement rate overall), doesn't sound like "achieving level 4"
autonomy either-either.

------
jelliclesfarm
[https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/plusai-autonomous-
truck...](https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/plusai-autonomous-truck-
completes-coast-to-coast-delivery-in-3-days/568729/) : Level 4 autonomy. more
details here [..] The company has run smaller-scale pilots across the U.S. and
has operations underway in Beijing and Shanghai, China, Kerrigan said.

The delivery for Land O' Lakes is the first where Plus.ai has been able to
disclose companies involved. Kerrigan said he was unable to confirm whether
Plus.ai would run similar deliveries for Land O' Lakes. He said the trip
allowed Plus.ai to collect data on driving conditions, including rain and
snow, which is crucial to ensuring the technology is safe for mainstream use.

TuSimple, another autonomous trucking company, is planning to run fully
autonomous commercial freight deliveries in 2021. The company's trucks also
run at L4 autonomy, and completed pilots delivering cargo for UPS and the U.S.
Postal Service in Arizona this year.

Amazon, Google and other major companies have explored using autonomous trucks
to speed up delivery times, address the driver shortage, or potentially phase
out drivers.[..]

------
peterwwillis
They were delivering butter... to Pennsylvania? TIL: California is the
nation's leading milk producer, New York is fourth, Pennsylvania is 7th.

~~~
catalogia
Yeah that doesn't make much sense to me. Local brands of butter made with
local dairy are popular in Pennsylvania. It's alarming to think how
environmentally inefficient shipping butter two thousand miles must be.

~~~
berbec
One can not forget the genius product that is Fiji Water[1]. Thinking about
what happened to get that bottle into the fridge of my bodega makes me
shudder.

1: [https://www.fijiwater.com/faqs.html](https://www.fijiwater.com/faqs.html)

"IS FIJI WATER FROM FIJI?

One hundred percent of FIJI Water is from a single source in the pristine,
tropical Fiji Islands, an archipelago of over 300 islands nestled in the South
Pacific, more than 1600 miles from the nearest industrialized country."

~~~
Symbiote
I hope you don't buy it.

I've seen it for sale in Europe, which is as far from Fiji as one can be.

They must have a very effective marketing team. It seems every US TV show has
Fiji water in the fridge.

~~~
schoen
> Europe, which is as far from Fiji as one can be

Almost! West Africa is a little further.

[https://www.geodatos.net/en/antipodes/fiji/western/nadi](https://www.geodatos.net/en/antipodes/fiji/western/nadi)

------
Tempest1981
PBS recently had a good show about the AI revolution, saying it's similar to
the industrial revolution. They show Embark AI/trucking in SF, and interview
an unsuspecting truck driver:
[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/announcement/frontline-
in...](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/announcement/frontline-investigates-
the-promise-and-perils-of-artificial-intelligence-in-a-two-hour-special/)

Excerpt about tearing society apart:

"I believe about 50 percent of jobs will be somewhat or extremely threatened
by AI in the next 15 years or so,” says Kai-Fu Lee, who has written a book
called AI Superpowers. He fears that the rise of AI will contribute to another
alarming trend: the growing inequality in earnings. “AI will exacerbate that
and I think it will tear the society apart,” Kai-Fu Lee warns, “because the
rich will have just too much, and those who are have-nots will have perhaps
very little way of digging themselves out of the hole."

It also mentions China's heavy investment in AI.

------
t-h-e-chief
What is my purpose.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7HmltUWXgs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7HmltUWXgs)

~~~
cellularmitosis
My favorite variation on this meme is where the robot is labeled “clisp” (a
less popular Lisp implementation) and its purpose is “to bootstrap sbcl” (a
popular Lisp implementation)

------
sdan
Interesting thing is that their Silicon Valley office is next to a strip mall
and is more of an office space than an industrial one. I live near there and
so far haven't seen any of their branded trucks or anything of their brand
really relative to other self driving startups like Apple roaming around with
their mattress-like hardware system.

So I'm guessing most development work is happening in China, just like several
other Chinese based self-driving companies.

~~~
Tempest1981
Their webpage shows 15 engineering job openings in Silicon Valley:
[https://plus.ai/join/](https://plus.ai/join/)

~~~
crtlaltdel
imo the open req for an auto tech is a tell that they either have a low key
shop or are building a shop out in sv

------
louis_pasteur
Sooner or later, drones will start plying across aerial routes too for
transportation of goods. That will be perhaps both cheaper for ebay/amazon and
also leave the roads free for people to walk. What do you think?

~~~
CraneWorm
Isn't flying stuff more expensive than driving it around?

~~~
jillesvangurp
Depends. Uf you have solar panels, the electricity is more or less free after
you buy and deploy them. So if you have some drone fleet and solar panels +
batteries, the only real cost you have is basically maintenance. The way many
businesses work, variable cost is what matters. So you'd lease the drones, the
solar panels & batteries (or just get a cheap energy supplier) and focus on
handling and transporting packages. Drones are interesting for that because
you can save time by flying point to point, and cost by not having to employ
drivers/pilots.

------
sneak
I rather wish we could use trains more.

~~~
tudorizer
Same here. All this tech is cool and all, but trains would remove some of the
variables.

~~~
abricot
Maybe technology could help us all buying more locally sourced butter? :)

------
robomartin
Sorry to pour cold butter on this...

This is not at all what we want. We need to build an automated electric high
speed cargo rail system connecting the coasts and major ports. The system has
to have the ability for individual container units to be routed independently.

Nothing would compare to moving cargo at 300 mph or more on an efficient rail
system.

We need trucking to be local or short range and eliminate individual trucks
for long range delivery.

~~~
bagacrap
Nothing except moving the cargo at 50 or 100mph. A shipping container moving
300mph at ground level is going to encounter some insane wind resistance even
if you do attach fairings.

~~~
robomartin
Seriously? Look up TGV and imagine the cars have containers inside. Not that
difficult. Far more efficient than trucks.

And then there’s Hyperloop.

------
TAForObvReasons
This is an impressive feat but something is confusing.

Picture caption:

> A safety driver was behind the wheel, but the truck drove _mostly_
> autonomously.

Body text:

> A Silicon Valley startup has completed what appears to be the first
> commercial freight cross-country trip by an autonomous truck

> There were zero “disengagements,” or times the self-driving system had to be
> suspended because of a problem, Kerrigan said.

What is the "mostly" qualifier in the picture caption referring to?

~~~
bsder
Probably refueling. I can't imagine the truck drives into a truck stop
autonomously.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
I wish I had posted this link..it’s a much better one and gives more details
[https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/plusai-autonomous-
truck...](https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/plusai-autonomous-truck-
completes-coast-to-coast-delivery-in-3-days/568729/) [..]To comply with hours
of service (HOS) requirements, Shawn Kerrigan, COO and co-founder of Plus.ai,
told Supply Chain Dive that the truck driver took over when getting off the
highway for rest stops and breaks, otherwise, he said the journey was
completed autonomously.[..]

~~~
mattrp
I’ve driven this route before. What’s remarkable about it is how unremarkable
it is. The only thing could be a possible risk would be a snowstorm in
Colorado. Otherwise the route is basically one long boring ride. Maybe the Las
Vegas 95-15 intersection presents a challenge? St Louis and Kansas City have
some transitions. Everywhere else - Mojave, Utah, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, PA
is all relatively straight, without obstacles and rural. Even the 78 to 309
transition to Quakertown is a fairly pedestrian two lane merge. I guess my
point is if you’re gonna do a 3000 mile butter run, it could get any easier.
Personally I would have hired a 78 Trans Am and shipped a container’s worth of
Coors.

------
Tempest1981
Here is the PBS AI segment showing Embark's technology in action:
[https://www.limitstogrowth.org/articles/2019/11/06/pbs-
front...](https://www.limitstogrowth.org/articles/2019/11/06/pbs-frontline-
surveys-a-future-with-artificial-intelligence/)

------
scurvy
Out of curiosity, how do they handle the transmissions in self-driving trucks?
My guess was automatics, but torque converter automatics aren't strong enough
for use in a big-rig like this. DSG? Fully "automatic" clutch-based manuals?
These things have to be pretty expensive.

~~~
jillesvangurp
When trucks go electric, they'll be a lot easier to control. Current trucks
are optimized for truck drivers. They become a lot simpler if you no longer
need to worry about transporting humans. IMHO autonomous ICE vehicles on the
road will probably not happen because they are getting replaced with cheaper
EVs in roughly the same time frame that autonomous driving is happening and
not having to worry about complex engines simplifies the job of automating
things.

~~~
gambiting
>>When trucks go electric, they'll be a lot easier to control

The big elephant in the room is of course the fact that no one can actually
explain _how_ you'd make trucks electric. Cabs aren't fitted with dual 300
litre diesel tanks for show - moving 40+ tonnes takes a lot of energy and a
battery that would provide a similar range to what we have now would be
gigantic, meaning both very heavy and very expensive.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Tesla is planning to ship a truck soon and they've been driving the prototypes
around for a few years now. So they seem to have a plan for this with all
these boxes ticked (class 8 heavy duty truck, check, 500 miles, check, etc.).
Also other's are already producing electric vans, trucks, buses, as well. And
I think there was a story about some ginormous heavy duty mining ore EV trucks
[https://hackaday.com/2019/08/22/electric-dump-truck-
produces...](https://hackaday.com/2019/08/22/electric-dump-truck-produces-
more-energy-than-it-uses/). Takeaway point is that if you need heavy duty
engines with insane amounts of torque, electric is the way to do it. Most
modern oil tankers are electric engines powered by diesel generators for the
same reason.

Batteries are not cheap of course. But then the life time consumption of
diesel for a Truck is not exactly cheap either and probably buys you a lot of
battery and power to charge them. Assuming a million miles (which is what
Tesla is shooting for with their drive trains) and a generous 6 miles to the
gallon, we're talking about 0.5M fuel cost at 3$/gallon. Your mileage may vary
a little of course but it's a nice round number. If you'd buy Tesla 3's at 50K
each and stripped their batteries you'd end up with with 10 x 75kwh = 750kwh
(and a lot of premium cars). So, lets just say that amount of money easily
gets you into mwh territory which fully explains why Tesla can advertise a 500
mile range, which in a truck doing 50m/h is about ten hours of driving, which
I'm sure legally requires taking some breaks in the US as well (i.e, plenty of
opportunity for charging, just in case you'd bring up range anxiety as a
thing).

As the whole point of a truck is to move heavy loads, adding a few tonnes of
battery that you would need for this should not be a problem. Torque is
superior with electric. I doubt moving 40+ tonnes is going to be much of a
problem given that they routinely demonstrate the torque of EVs by having them
pull e.g. freight trains, large jets, or whatever. Also, EVs can do
regeneration downhill or when braking and they barely use any power when
idling (unlike Diesel engines).

------
mempko
Amazing! Though, you have to wonder, would it be better if people just got
their butter from local producers... This, of course, goes with any sort of
food. Seems trucking has helped centralize farming which, from a risk
perspective, is not a good thing.

------
sys_64738
How does a self-driving truck refill its gas tank without human intervention?

~~~
aggie
Why does it need to be without human intervention? A gas station attendant on
major trucking routes is a pretty easy solution until some autonomous docking
standard is developed.

------
sidcool
How much would it usually take? And didn't the hands-off driver and safety
engineer need breaks?

------
Animats
Is this really doing more than lane keeping and anti-rear-ending? It's hard to
tell.

------
JohnClark1337
I could be wrong but I think a good initial phase would be to have some kind
of station at the edge of cities where human drivers can jump in and take over
for navigating within cities for pickup and dropoff, and then getting out and
letting the AI drive the long-haul.

------
duelingjello
Sure, it proved it can do an autonomous truck Cannonball run, but why not
produce and use locally? Not as some hippy-dippy thing, but it seems like a
waste of petroleum to truck products clear across the entire country when
there's enough land and resources to make the same or similar products nearer
to the points of consumption. Common. sense.

~~~
freddie_mercury
It isn't like we never tried your idea. That's exactly how it worked for
decades & centuries and then the world discovered shipping stuff from far away
works better.

~~~
duelingjello
Yes, obviously about the past. .. and it also worked. You say "better" but you
don't give any evidence to support your claim other than it's implicitly the
status quo. Furthermore, shipping things halfway around the world is killing
us in terms of carbon emissions. Hyperlocal manufacturing + regional
manufacturing is inevitable because we cannot afford to keep that near
vertical CO2 graph going up another 100 ppm.

Also, corporate giant agribusinesses with their pesticide residues and crop
monocultures will likely lead us into illnesses and famines from "unexpected"
crop failures by putting all their "eggs" into one clone crop "basket" and one
region "basket."

