[kstoneman]

It's a lot further away than 20 years. It really won't be practical for autonomous trucks to share the roads with passenger vehicles using the existing infrastructure. After a handful or more major accidents with multiple deaths involving autonomous trucks, there will be no public support for them.

And there will be major accidents with multiple deaths, since the average passenger car driver is so unskilled. No software can account for every idiotic move made by the typical car driver, and big trucks take a lot of room and time to stop. A few lawsuits later, all the financial gains will disappear for the trucking companies and drivers are back in the seat.

I could see in 20 years a system where computer assisted driving automates much of the trip, much like commercial aircraft operate now.

[stale2002]

Self driving trucks on the highway are already legal in some states. EX: Arizona.

Yeah, city driving is hard. That might be a long ways away. But highway driving? Thats easy. You can even buy a highway driving, consumer self driving vehicle right NOW. Tesla sells them.

[kstoneman]

Self-driving is not the same as autonomous, though. There is always a human present, and sometimes that's not enough to make up for the fact that a Tesla apparently can't "see" a 75 foot long, 13 1/2 foot high truck in front of it while driving down the highway.

And while highway driving generally has fewer decision points per mile than city driving, the speeds are much higher and so the effects of errors are much greater on the highway. The worst wrecks I've seen have all been on the highway, not in cities.