[comonad-colaboy]

Can anybody expand on the link between autonomous car driving vs autonomous truck driving in terms of challenges faced. If they are similar, not sure why there is this kind of forecasting seeing how autonomous car driving is pretty much far from over or even usable. If they are vastly different, I don't imagine trucking is any easier than cars (maybe it is?)

[rtkwe]

Depends on where the truck is driving. If we restrict them to highway or designed hubs off of highways the problem of trucks isn't much harder than cars. When we start talking about maneuvering in smaller areas like city streets and receiving areas at the destination it's definitely somewhat harder just because there's so much more vehicle to handle and keep track of.

One reason to think it'll happen much quicker in trucking is because the economic incentive is much higher for a trucking company to replace it's drivers than for a single person to use an autonomous car.

[im_down_w_otp]

For trucking, solving less of the total problem is still immensely valuable. For example, being able to do simple platooning on freeways and having a driver available to navigate complex or congested environments can still provide significant commercial benefits in cost & efficiency. This isn't as much the case for autonomous passenger vehicles.

Additionally, the safety and compliance standards are different. For instance, ISO 26262 only applies to passenger vehicles.

[civilitty]

The difference is in economic incentives, not necessarily challenges. Driving a truck is definitely more difficult than a car but well within the ballpark of any self-driving technology capable of autonomous city driving.

However, while the average consumer won't pay an extra $10-??k for a first generation self driving car that can't navigate their daily commute, a trucking company will glady pay an extra $50-???k for a first generation self driving truck that can only drive on highways to distribution centers if it means eliminating the human driver. The latter is as much as 50% of the operating cost of transportation, even when long haul trucking, so as long as capital and maintenance costs are comparable there is a lot more room to profit off of each sale. Even if it takes autonomous cars many more decades years to become an every day consumer item, autonomous trucks will likely be operational much sooner just because there is so much more money to be made in the short term from a few clients like Walmart, Amazon, Costco, etc. that don't need a perfect driving experience to benefit financially.