Self-driving big-rig technology developing fast
FROM behind the wheel of his big rig, Eric Feehan can’t quite envision a future when 18-wheelers drive themselves.
“There are so many variables, I don’t think anybody’s going to make it work,” the Minnesota truck driver said during a break in Sparks, Nevada.
In 24 years on the road, Feehan has learned that it takes experience and instinct to react when your truck is buffeted by 40 mph (64 kph) winds, to sense the moment when wet highways turn to ice, or to anticipate when a car is going to swerve in front of you.
“There’s no way they’re ever going to program that into a self-driving truck,” said Feehan, who lives in Farmington and regularly drives to Arizona and California.
They’re working on it, though. While advancements in autonomous - or self-driving - cars get much of the attention, development of selfdriving commercial vehicles is speeding forward. Complex questions involving safety, security, liability, regulations and infrastructure remain, making widespread use years away, but trucks that operate with minimal driver involvement are being tested now. Tesla will unveil an electric autonomous semi on October 26, and most major truck makers are working on versions.
The Trump administration is encouraging progress with what it calls a “nonregulatory approach” to autonomous vehicles, which means that it wants as few rules as possible. That has exacerbated some safety concerns.
“When we’re talking about vehicles, the size of a house going 70 miles per hour [112 kph] down Center for Auto Safety in Washington, “there’s a real concern that the technology isn’t ready yet to be released into the wild.”
In the early stages, experts say, some kind of technician or operator would still be in the cab. But the end goal is a truck that could drive itself.
are caused by human error. In theory, there would be fewer as self-driving vehicles multiply.
“This technology is not just coming; it’s here,” said John Hausladen, president of the Minnesota Trucking Association, which has a task force on in September.
Gary Pressley, a task force member and president of Heavy Metal Truck Training in Eagan, said that activity is picking up. Last month, the issue was among topics he discussed at a retreat held by a trucking company in Green Bay, Wisconsin., and at a national meeting of the Commercial Vehicle Training Association in San Antonio.
“We’re talking years and years of testing and acceptance” before autonomous trucks become commonplace on America’s roads, Pressley said. “It’s not going to be next year. But it is coming.”
The state is preparing. Ray Starr, assistant of Transportation, is on a self-driving vehicle committee with other state agencies - including Public Safety, Commerce, the State Patrol and the Council on Disability - that meets quarterly. Autonomous vehicles are on the agenda for the October 26-27 meeting of the state Toward Zero Deaths initiative, which focuses on reducing
The state will soon test an autonomous bus. “Vehicles are changing very quickly,” Starr said, and the state must factor that into its 20-year transportation plans, which “quite likely will change drastically.”
To replace 6.2M drivers
Investment company Goldman Sachs projected in May that autonomous cars could replace 6.2 million professional drivers by 2030. The trucking industry is experiencing a national driver shortage.
Hausladen said that autonomous trucks could alleviate the shortfall, but added, “Critical driver functions aren’t going away.” Pressley said that as technology evolves, so will operators’ roles. “The next phase might be that the driver becomes a technician,” he said. That could attract young, tech-savvy drivers, but also would require advanced training.”
“If we come forward with the [autonomous truck] technology, I suspect it’s also going to drag along new jobs,” said state Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, who chairs the Senate Transportation Finance and Policy Committee.
Newman would like to hold an informational hearing on the evolving technology.
Adam Thierer is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at Virginia’s George Mason University, which links academic research to public policy problems. He believes that we’re witnessing not just an industrial transformation, but what he called a “pacing problem: the problem of technological innovation outstripping the ability of regulators to keep up.”
The current discussion about autonomous vehicles “foreshadows upcoming debates about other robotic systems,” Thierer said. “The bottom line is and state regulators for emerging technologies.”
So what’s next? Norway plans to launch the later this year.