WHY DO WE NEED SELF-DRIVING TRUCKS?

As with any radical new technology, there’s going to be a lot of skepticism. Daimler emphasized its autonomous trucks are not intended to replace drivers. They went so far as to claim a driver will always be required, though I suspect at some point in my lifetime I’ll be writing about truly driverless trucks. That’s a long way off, though.

No hands needed.
No hands needed.

Autonomous trucks bring benefits to driver, shipper and fleet owner. Most truck crashes are caused by the driver and self-driving trucks have the potential to eliminate a lot of these incidents. The computers never tire or have a bad day, as even the best drivers do. There are efficiency gains to be had as well; Daimler predicts fuel economy can improve by about 5% using autonomously-driven trucks. And the profession too could receive some renewed interest, especially from young people who are tech-savvy and enjoy interacting with highly-sophisticated technologies such as what would be found within the autonomously-driven vehicles. And before long, this technology won’t even seem so radical. There’s already lots going on in the pass-car (as they say in Europe) world in relation to autonomously-driven vehicles (ie. the Google car).

So, do we really need autonomous trucks? Probably not. But the early adopters may have a competitive advantage and if they work as well as claimed, and could drive the more widespread adoption.

For a full report on the demonstration, go here.

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James Menzies is editorial director of Today's Trucking and TruckNews.com. He has been covering the Canadian trucking industry for more than 24 years and holds a CDL. Reach him at james@newcom.ca or follow him on Twitter at @JamesMenzies.


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  • in my opinion, the reason why these trucks would be put into production is to save companies paying millions of pounds a year to drivers. This will cause unemployment through out the world. which means tax increases to pay benefits for the millions who would lose their jobs.

  • “So, do we really need autonomous trucks?”
    The question is who is we? If you mean truck drivers, not much. If you mean business owners, very much.