[constantcrying]

The economics of this are nonsensical. The autonomy is not going to happen any time soon, navigating a construction site safely is significantly harder than navigating traffic safely.

This leaves remote operation, which just makes no sense at all. The cost of one guy going to a construction site is never going to be more expensive than retrofitting a fleet of excavators with this hardware and building a remote operating center. Additionally these should obviously not be allowed to be used at construction sites, since remote operation in such a dangerous environment adds a totally new layer of hazards. Direct communication between operators, verbally and visually, is extremely important, to operate an excavator safely.

[lnsru]

I think, you must be technical guy. As a technical guy I share your negativity:-) While mining is already automated, the regular construction sites are too small, not scalable and retrofit costs are huge. Autonomous excavator is functional safety nightmare… it can not only drive, but has a huge moving metal part. And can dig holes and fall into these holes.

And last but not least, my car can’t keep lane and can’t drive itself safely in autonomous mode for 50 miles straight on clear day on highway. That’s state of art vision only system in 2025.

The salary of the skilled guy is laughable compared to heavy machinery costs. I was in a quarry on Tuesday. Two guys were operating 7000000€ machinery there, their salary is rounding error in the whole operation. Fuel over the year costs more.