Self-driving passenger cars seem some way off, but several truckmakers are making big investments in their long-haul operations. By Jacob Moreton
Many long-haul trucking operators are betting on autonomous technology. By reducing the number of drivers needed to pilot a fleet of vehicles—eventually even to zero, perhaps—truckmakers can reduce costs and tackle problems that have dogged the segment for decades.
In the passenger vehicle segment, progress on autonomous vehicles (AVs) seems slower than was expected just a few years ago, and profits are not forthcoming. From December 2020 to April 2021, Uber, Voyage and Lyft all sold their AV units to larger companies, In that context, AV developers are putting much more money and effort towards commercial vehicle operations, not least long-haul trucking.
“Long-haul trucking does what is the easiest for automated driving,” says Brett Smith, Director of Technology at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). “It operates on usually well-marked, well-signed, open, long-distance highways. When you look at Super Cruise or you look at Tesla’s almost fully self-driving vehicle, that’s where they perform well.”
The simplest autonomous application?
The long, open roads familiar to long-haul truck drivers make the segment “the simplest part of the automated driving portfolio,” Smith adds. “You could say driving around a suburban neighbourhood or a very open space, as Waymo is doing in Arizona, is not incredibly difficult. It’s challenging—I’ll give them credit for it—but driving on a highway in good weather is something that a lot of companies are doing right now.”
One company investing heavily in autonomy for long-haul trucking is Waymo, which through its trucking division—Waymo Via—is currently expanding operations in Texas, Arizona and California, with plans to build a nine-acre trucking hub in Texas and a partnership with Ryder for fleet management services on hubs and testing sites. In the future, the company intends to continue scaling testing operations across the Southwest US, a spokesperson says.
No human in the loop
Waymo’s testing plans are ambitious; it is aiming for no less than Level 4 autonomy, which requires no human driver. In current tests, Waymo trucks have two humans in the vehicle monitoring the ride—a licensed driver specialising in AVs, and a technician in the passenger seat.
“While our trucks currently operate with human autonomous specialists monitoring the ride, they operate autonomously 24/7 and are already equipped to achieve full autonomy, with no human driver, when we’re ready,” the spokesperson explains. “Our autonomous driving system, Waymo Driver, includes both software and a suite of sensors capable of performing the entire driving task. Eventually, our goal is to remove the autonomous specialists and leverage the power of our technology to transport goods in fully autonomous trucks.”
A drive for efficiency
Before companies like Waymo achieve full autonomy, drivers will remain in the vehicle. At that stage, only small tweaks can be made to vehicle efficiency through autonomy, says CAR’s Smith. “You can teach your driver to get better and better and better, and you can plan for the future,” he says. “You can’t absolutely predict it with certainty, but you can plan for the future in terms of factors like hills, to make a more efficient drive cycle from point A to point B.”
With an optimised, dependable network of autonomously driven vehicles, fleets will be able to decrease the number of deadhead miles and improve efficiency for themselves and drivers
Efficiency could also be found through platooning, Smith says. This involves a driver, or even an automated vehicle, driving at the front of a fleet, with other vehicles following closely behind, to improve fuel efficiency. Studies conducted by the US’ National Renewable Energy Laboratory have shown lead vehicles saving up to 10% of fuel at the closest separation distances, while the middle vehicle and trailing vehicles can save up to 17% and 13% respectively. But Smith says doubt remains over just how significant the efficiency tweaks from autonomy can be. “The opportunity comes back to getting the driver out of the vehicle,” he argues.
Still, Waymo believes autonomy could provide a solution to efficiency problems the segment currently faces. “With an optimised, dependable network of autonomously driven vehicles,” a spokesperson says, “fleets will be able to decrease the number of deadhead miles and improve efficiency for themselves and drivers.”
Battling shortages
Autonomous trucks could even provide a solution to the driver shortages currently plaguing several markets, Waymo argues. Shortages in the UK, which have led to port logjams and warnings of Christmas shortages, threaten to spread to the rest of Europe. The European Road Haulers Association (UETR) warned in a September 2021 statement that these shortages were already impacting supply chains, trade and the real economy across Europe. Also suffering is the US, where the pandemic saw demand for goods skyrocket and driver supply decline simultaneously.
“Waymo Via is able to help address the issue of driver supply shortages,” the company says. “It’s tough to get a person to spend a month in a truck at a time, far from their homes and families. And as the driver population ages toward retirement, fewer and fewer young people are choosing to become truck drivers. Autonomous driving technology can provide a solution here and help narrow this gap first and foremost.”
Smith is sceptical that expanding CV autonomy would do much to counteract these shortages, however. “It’s probably not trustworthy enough in the near-term to make a difference in the next two, three or four years,” he says. “The question becomes: is this a structural problem or is it a temporary problem? I think it’s more structural than temporary for the US.”
Not all roads are equal
Some roads might be more amenable to driverless trucks. For example, it might be easier to imagine fully autonomous vehicles driving down long, mostly empty roads in the Canadian Prairies, or on Germany’s autobahns, where roads are well maintained and rules are generally well enforced. But on the majority of public roads in countries like the US, removing drivers from trucks completely is not a short-term possibility, Smith says.
In the meantime, it is possible that autonomy could help to motivate new drivers by making the job more attractive. According to the American Trucking Associations (ATA), 90% of drivers leave within the first year due to the tough conditions. For example, drivers are usually paid by the mile, rather than the hour, and aren’t paid for downtime. Having a partially autonomous driving system could make the long stints required of drivers less relentless, reducing employee churn.
Bringing investors back
Waymo is not the only truckmaker putting significant money towards its autonomous operation. Chinese self-driving firm TuSimple is also partnering with Ryder and plans to expand to the East Coast in late 2022. In June 2021 the company built a new Texas facility in the early stages of a three-phase plan to achieve a US-wide autonomous freight network (AFN) by 2024. In the same month, Amazon bought a fleet of 1,000 autonomous trucks from Plus, and signed up for a 20% stock option in the company, marking a significant investment in autonomous trucking. Investment is also taking place in Asia—US start-up Kodiak Robotics announced a partnership with South Korean company SK Group in May 2021, to explore the deployment of its technology in Asia.
A few years ago, some investors left the AV segment in search of other projects when they realised profits would only be realised in the long term, Smith recalls. But those same investors might well be attracted back by the strong prospects of autonomous trucking, he adds. “It will be interesting to see if connected automated vehicles get a bump up as people start to look towards the highways.”