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.

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!

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...

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.

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.

dammit

Ah, you're thinking of the world famous Las Vegas Hyperloop!

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.)

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.

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.

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.

> 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?

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.

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.

I have some bad news for you: those trucks are eighty thousand pounds gross.

In other words, trains

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

Hmmmmm.

So we're going to have a lot of people potentially unemployed because of this...

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...

"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.

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?

Survey of trucking company finds shortage of workers. Well I for one am shocked!

“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...

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

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.

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.

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

UBI is inevitable imo; we're going to continue to see machines replace humans in roles like this.

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.

true, but on the other hand when things get bad enough the guillotine plans will probably be open sourced and freely shared.

> Well, not with being asked politely, at least.

yep, it definitely won't happen politely

Of all the countries in the world, it definitely won't happen in the United States.

Who is going to willingly fund it?

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.

At the same time that tariffs slow down the entire trucking industry -- truckers are gonna definitely be hurting

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...

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.

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.

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."

Bingo. "No one wants to work [for a wage they can't live off of with pitiful benefits] anymore!"

It's an incredibly dangerous job, both in terms of chronic health and acute risk.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Walmart and similar employers have no trouble finding drivers. Decent pay, benefits and schedules makes it easy.

Walmart is still hiring drivers, though.

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.

Tangent

Reminds me of this (automated systems still doing their thing after humans are gone)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhRapsbwhqE

I like the tone of SOLSTICE 5 by P Chadeisson as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cntb3wcZdTw

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.

Waymo has done winter testing in Buffalo.