Driverless electric truck starts deliveries on Swedish public road

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-einride-autonomous-sweden/driverless-electric-truck-starts-deliveries-on-swedish-public-road-idUSKCN1SL0NC

by Melchizedek • 7 years ago

181 116 7 years ago

reuters.com

dmitriid3• 7 years ago

The gist:

The T-Pod has permission to make short trips - between a warehouse and a terminal - on a public road in an industrial area in Jonkoping, central Sweden, at up to 5 km/hr, documents from the transport authority show. Einride would apply next year for more public route permits and was planning to expand in the United States.

So, not as sensational as the title would lead you believe.

hef19898• 7 years ago

So kinda like the automated trailers used for containers at major ports, just electric.

sorenjan• 7 years ago

Whoever claimed that Jönköping is in central Sweden needs some kind of measuring device, it's quite clearly in the south. Even if the northern half is comparatively sparsely populated it still counts as part of Sweden.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=57.783333&mlon=14.166667...

dsfyu404ed2• 7 years ago

It's like when people say anything more than an hour north of NYC is "upstate".

You kind of need to have a "there is no land beyond the beltway" world view to wind up working for most media outlets anyway (not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg) so this is "central Sweden" by that yard stick.

elygre2• 7 years ago

ThatI would argue that an population based map projection would put Jönköping nicely in the middle.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/massive-world-map-redrawn-b...

elamje2• 7 years ago

I believe this is what is referred to as central Sweden because it lies in the middle of Sweden's two major cities, Stockholm and Gothenburg. Similarly, Austin is considered Central Texas, Dallas is considered North Texas, etc. even though that isn't extremely accurate looking at a map.

HNLurker2• 7 years ago

So, not as sensational as the title would lead you believe.

But enough to make me believe in not wanting to get a future job in driving trucks (there's a market here that pays)

dmitriid3• 7 years ago

I think truck drivers (especially long haulers) are safe for at least 10-20 years. But yeah, truck are probably the first road vehicles to be reliably automated.

seanmcdirmid3• 7 years ago

It’s not like many kids are planning to be truck drivers. It is a job that people wander into. The bigger problem will be those that are doing it when the job goes away, as well as continued pressure on the job market as a whole (what will pop up to replace the portion of the labor pool that would have driven trucks before).

rakoo3• 7 years ago

Is it not the first fully autonomous truck, if not vehicle, used in a "real life" scenario that is not just a closed-off portion of a street ? That is the real interesting point, regardless of the speed or the actual location.

TotempaaltJ• 7 years ago

It's definitely not the first /vehicle/. Waymo has fully autonomous cars driving people around in Phoenix.

mariefred• 7 years ago

not even the first in Sweden, I took a ride on a self driving bus (that had a safety person sitting bored inside) in a suburb of Stockholm

https://mitti.se/nyheter/forsvinner-sjalvkorande-bussar/

black62• 7 years ago

Thewes said the rollout of 5G technology, vital for electrification, was lagging.

Why is a cellular network standard needed for electrification?

LeonM• 7 years ago

My best guess is that they confused autonomous driving with electrification.

Sharlin• 7 years ago

To be fair, automation is also a form of electrification, just not of the powertrain but of the driver ;)

maxerickson• 7 years ago

They apparently want to use it for when a human operator controls the vehicle to get it out of a situation the autonomous system can't handle.

snarf212• 7 years ago

This is what I expect for the first set of automated for freight. There will be designated on/off ramps for automated trucks. Some human will drive them there and park them. The trucks will drive across interstates and get off at another designated on/off ramp and a human will drive them to the warehouse. This removes a lot of the risks associated with automation and reduces the biggest expense of having long haul driver teams.

adav• 7 years ago

I wonder what would cost the Transport firm more: the time impact due to the low 5km/h speed or the costs of a human driver per truck?

At was speed does the automated system pay for itself if speed vs human is a reasonable trade off to consider?

* Not considering the cost of doing the research and the cost of the self-driving truck.

dsfyu404ed2• 7 years ago

For OTR use the human driver costs you tons of money because the regulations that go with the human driver force the truck to be stationary a large fraction of the time. That's the market they're (eventually) targeting, not local delivery where the driver usually also has responsibilities having to do with the cargo.

For the use case mentioned in the article the human driven option is going to be cheaper because the human driven truck goes faster. Going 10km/h results in basically the same throughput as having two trucks (yes I know there's other "per trip" overhead, that's not the point).

dredds• 7 years ago

Assuming the battery could be swapped out in a few minutes, then traveling at a 1/3 of the speed of a human driver displaces the cost of one driver on a regular shift of 8 hours. But on a 24/7/365 schedule (weekends and holidays too) even 1/4 the speed will cover wages. Reversing this, an Electric Truck with battery swap or on-road charging going 25km/h displaces the cost of 1 driver traveling 100km/h for equal distance.

skohan3• 7 years ago

There was an electric car startup (now defunct) in Israel which built a network of "swap stations" so drivers of their cars could do long drives without spending hours at charging stations. The process was a bit like going through a carwash: it was completely automated and couldn't have taken more than 5-10 minutes.

ahje2• 7 years ago

the time impact due to the low 5km/h speed or the costs of a human driver per truck

The route is fairly short so speed is probably not an issue: https://goo.gl/maps/9yRtQV88NEzDEcePA

The route is described a bit better in a Swedish article I found: https://teknikensvarld.se/forarlos-lastbil-far-tillstand-att...

notahacker• 7 years ago

Looking at that route it looks like the sort of public road nobody would actually travel on unless they worked for DB Schenker at those facilities or were desperate to avoid the more direct and better marked roads across that industrial estate

A giant leap for regulators, perhaps, since it's technically a public road, but looks like the standard move around company facility use case proposed for autonomous vehicles rather than anything comparable with transit haul or a taxi service.

Tade0• 7 years ago

Truck drivers in the EU can't spend more than 90h driving during any given two weeks, and they usually go 80-100km/h, so the break-even point in terms of time alone here would be around 22-27km/h.

My take is that at 30km/h they would make a very compelling case - since that's the minimum highway speed in some countries.

skohan3• 7 years ago

Having automated trucks clogging one lane at 30km/h would be disastrous for PR, and I imagine it would have a very negative impact on traffic in general. As far as I'm aware, the safest and most efficient scenario for highway traffic is to have cars and trucks traveling at equal speeds.

jacquesm2• 7 years ago

My take is that at 30km/h they would make a very compelling case - since that's the minimum highway speed in some countries.

In NL it is 70 kph, and if you go that fast you are a danger to other drivers. What country has 30 km/h as the minimum highway speed? And what do the highways there look like? Do people actually go that fast on the highways or is that the speed that won't get you ticketed if you drive on the shoulder with an SMV?

kalleboo• 7 years ago

It reads like the speed limit isn't due to the system but due to the permit they got from the government. Another article says the truck has a top speed of 85 km/h

koala_man• 7 years ago

This. There's no way anything technical is imposing this limit.

melling• 7 years ago

There’s a fortune to be made in the global freight industry.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/15/convoy-flexport-automating-t...

There are tens of billions that can be carved out with automation. Electrics near large urban areas will definitely help air quality.

icxa• 7 years ago

There's more than a couple of fortunes to lose by automating the trucking industry as well.

tannerc• 7 years ago

Can you elaborate? I don't necessarily agree nor disagree, I'm simply curious what you're specifically referring to here.

pbhjpbhj4• 7 years ago

Tens of billions of wages no longer to be paid out to truckers. Amazon seem a long way on with packers too.

That's a lot of wealth transfer that's no longer going to happen between companies and poorer people; seems we'll accelerate wealth/income disparity.

jryle70• 7 years ago

Or a half full view: tens of billions, possibly more, will be paid to the same truckers in their new, more fulfilling and healthier occupation?

I don't know which scenario will play out. Neither do you. We'll have to see. Better yet, strive to make my scenario the reality. Complain about automation wouldn't help.

phreack• 7 years ago

The way forward seems to be enforcing the distribution at the state level, rather than forbidding automation.

z3t4• 7 years ago

Automation, electronics, washing machines, sewing machines etc have been a way out of poverty. human labour will be worth more. And prices of goods will go down, so the poor can buy more.

mcintyre1994• 7 years ago

You might not agree with his proposed solution (it's UBI), but Andrew Yang's book 'The war on normal people' is a really good well researched exploration of this issue (and other industries too).

HeadsUpHigh• 7 years ago

Are we really going to have the same conversation every single time something about automation is mentioned. I'm just mindblown how hostile people suddenly became to the very same process that has been enriching our lives since the first industrial revolution.

DINKDINK• 7 years ago

we'll accelerate wealth/income disparity

Do you believe that the wealth/income disparity would decrease if instead of employing one worker to drive a truck, each box was hand carried by 1000 workers? Unless the more cost-efficient delivery companies prevent competitors from entering the (now leaner) delivery market, the result of a decrease in the marginal cost of production is more, better quality, cheaper goods whose price decrease benefits those who are at the margins the most (the group you seem to be wanting to help and who would hurt the most by artificially increasing the cost of delivering goods).

The "Curse" of Machinery https://www.stevebaker.info/quick-guides/economics-in-one-le...

Spread-the-Work Schemes http://www.stevebaker.info/quick-guides/economics-in-one-les...

m463• 7 years ago

I've wondered if maybe we'll just have 5-day weekends?

megaremote• 7 years ago

If you have to go to the extreme to make your argument, maybe you are wrong?

Yes, it is disconcerting to remove so many jobs. There needs to be a solution to that.

manfredo• 7 years ago

Why is there so much emphasis on wealth disparity when there's substantial evidence that life is significantly getting better for the poor regardless of this disparity? This is just one example off the top of my news queue: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/05/18/american-...

The phrase "A rising tide lifts all ships" gets routinely mocked, but the data seems to indicate that is is true. While inequality has risen over the past several decades, quality of life even for the poorest quartile has improved.

dotancohen4• 7 years ago

I wonder why the truck has "Video recording in progress" in _English_ on the front. Wouldn't Swedish make more sense?

jbarberu• 7 years ago

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ While not the official language, you can oftentimes assume people will understand English in Sweden.

My observation in Florida is you find more people who don't speak English here than in Sweden.

TallGuyShort• 7 years ago

In parts of central Europe, I've found it easier to just speak English even when I know what I want to say in the native language. Lots of people from other countries who are also there getting by with English only, and people are so used to speaking English with foreigners that they're not used to hearing their own language in a foreign accent.

dotancohen4• 7 years ago

I'm sure that everyone in Sweden speaks English. But posting the message in English gives the impression that the native (and therefore supposed "default") language is not good enough for some purposes.

In my country we would post such a message in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Is there some aversion in Sweden to having the same message posted in multiple languages?

Are the street signs posted in Swedish or English?

kurthr• 7 years ago

Almost everyone of driving age in Sweden speaks English with complete or near fluency. I know there are a few who don't do well in class, and a few who are quite old, but maybe less than the number of tourists.

dagw4• 7 years ago

Here's the road (Skruvgatan) where the initial tests are being done: https://goo.gl/maps/mRj1qyMtYckVKzDz5

dmix• 7 years ago

These industrial parks look like the perfect semi enclosed environments to start using these level “4” vehicles in production. Plenty of wide open lanes and clear paths, not too heavy traffic and no random tourists gawking at them or being put at risk.

INTPenis• 7 years ago

Wouldn't it make more sense to make the automated trucks more accessible in case of the AI going on a rampage? I mean how do you even get into the cab?

If it was more normal looking you could at least smash the window. But they even protected the tires.

pojzon• 7 years ago

That statement in my country is just false: "face a growing shortage of drivers"

They just want to cut on costs.

drugme• 7 years ago

A perfectly valid point, of course.

And hence, there's no reason you should have been downvoted.

donaltroddyn• 7 years ago

As with all labour, they face a growing shortage of drivers at the rates they want to pay.

perfunctory• 7 years ago

Yep. This is just another example of framing.

elamje2• 7 years ago

I have been resistant to the idea of government/state support for people who are losing jobs to automation, because I think people will adjust over the long run and focus on more digital jobs. However, in the nearer term, there does seem to be a bigger case to be made for some sort of support since trucking a top occupation in the US, and #1 in most states.

In 10 - 20 years it seems concerning to think that 2 - 3 million people will be out of traditional work with little or no education. Additionally, young people will not have that occupation as an option. Any industry that large (including traditional diesel truck manufacturers, truck stops, gas stations, truck mechanics, etc.) will be drastically impacted, all in a relatively short time span.

Should there be some help? Should the government be rapidly retraining truck drivers for something else in the next few years?

cabaalis• 7 years ago

The primary barrier to social safety nets is the cost, and the ideological idea that government should not take more from its productive citizens to cover that cost.

If the largest organizations are effectively optimizing humans out of the costs, then wouldn't their profits correspondingly increase? And as the demand rises for the safety net, along with corporate profits, it seems so would the argument to take a portion of those profits to cover the nets. Maybe to the point of breaking the ideological barrier.

So wouldn't the businesses most harmed be those who continue to employ humans, as they'll have to pay the increased profit taxes as well as their employees?

dwild• 7 years ago

Additionally, young people will not have that occupation as an option.

What if the young already believe that?

It's anecdotal but I know someone that worked temporarily at a trucking company at the reception of their office. She's been told by the staff that they have quite a bit of trouble recruiting drivers. She didn't saw that many that came for an interview, but one of them didn't even had a driver license for trucks. They did an interview for someone that couldn't even do the job yet.

I can't see how legislation can be changed in 10 - 20 years either. Uber is 10 years old and still have trouble in MANY markets, not only against the laws but also against Taxi drivers. Even automatic trucks won't solve everything, thus companies that will use them will need both drivers, and a strike would be much worse to them than for Uber right now.

What about airplane and trains? Why do they still have drivers if automating them is much easier (and already actually done)?

Personally I can't see this industry no longer needing drivers for at least 30-40 years. Which isn't too bad with the current shortage of younger drivers.

jacquesm2• 7 years ago

I have been resistant to the idea of government/state support for people who are losing jobs to automation

Hazarding a guess: your job is not immediately at risk due to automation.

credit_guy• 7 years ago

Truck drives lose their jobs to automation. C programmers are superseded by java programmers, and then Rust/Go. Simplex optimization jobs get swept away by CPLEX, and later tensorflow. 20 years ago Visual Basic was all the rage, and 20 years before Cobol. Lots of people find themselves obsolete because, you know, the world changes. What's so special about truck drivers that they need government assistance?

To be honest, my guess would be that a typical truck driver is more resourceful than a typical javascript programmer. Take a look at [1] where a truck driver asks for advice how to switch careers and become a welder. You'll be impressed: the guy goes from asking a question to having his welding rig in two months.

[1] https://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?57666-From-Truck-Drive...

mattrp• 7 years ago

My problem with UBI is that it somehow doesn’t seem to be such a good idea to pay people to sit around and do nothing - except perhaps get too deep into social media. At the same time, I do see some benefit to the Danish-style garden leave where one gets about 80% of their former salary to bridge them to their next gig.

Driverless electric truck starts deliveries on Swedish public road

Related Stories