Driverless lorries will lead the way to a big bucks future

For most people, lorries are not very interesting. So when Tesla unveiled a new electric lorry yesterday, you probably skimmed and moved on. And yet, the unveiling is important for the future of both driverless cars and the automation of low-skilled jobs.

While Tesla touted its electric motors and batteries – 500 miles on a single charge – the real innovation was that it included its automatic driving system, called Enhanced Autopilot, in the new lorry.

Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, tweeted that his new vehicles would “blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension”. The final verdict on that declaration may be some time in coming. But what is certain is that lorries, rather than cars, are going to be the first movers in the shift to autonomous vehicles. Driving conditions on highways are predictable and so driverless vehicles will have to succeed here before moving into towns and cities. What happens in this space is a harbinger of the future.

Tech firms and carmakers know this and have ploughed money into automating haulage. Google’s Waymo and Uber’s Otto are both working on self-driving lorries, and Rio Tinto, the mining company, already uses them in Australia. In August, the Government announced that it will allow driverless lorries to be trialled on motorways, showing regulators are also keen to push the technology forward.

All this interest is driven by the fact that there is a lot of money to be made in driverless trucks. In 2013, road freight generated £22.9 billion in revenues in the UK while transporting more than 1.6 billion tonnes of goods. Lorry drivers earn about £30,000 a year and, unlike computers, need rest and sleep. Many lorry accidents are caused by driver fatigue. And so with faster delivery speeds, increased safety and lower costs, automation seems like a no-brainer.

But there would be a steep cost for the 285,000 drivers in this country. In the US, 1.7 million people drive trucks for a living and in 29 states it is the single largest occupation. It is hard to see how lorry drivers, who are generally middle-aged or older, can retool and find work when computers take over.

The other big threat is from hacking. Back in June, we learnt that the terrorists behind the London Bridge attacks had tried to copy earlier vehicle attacks in France and Germany. Tesla’s new lorry can carry about 36 tonnes. In the wrong hands, heavy vehicles are lethal weapons. We have to make sure the software developers don’t sacrifice safety in the rush to be first.

Where lorries lead, cars will follow; a driverless future is all but inevitable, but we must think hard about lost jobs and safety. As with most tech innovations, the benefits and costs will fall on very different groups and the Government needs to consider how to balance those gains and losses.