CCJ

May 2017

Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal

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22 commercial carrier journal | may 2017 long term for autonomy to be "on the horizon." I think of it as more "in the pipeline." People are afraid of this technology and have made that pretty clear. A Tesla already has killed its driver in an at-fault accident, and another accident in Arizona placed Uber's autonomous program on a brief pause. None of these "self-driving cars" has hit a pedestrian – yet. If or when that happens, that could add years to a rollout. While Henry Ford was banging away on sheet metal in his garage, most people weren't clamoring for cars. I haven't passed a horse on the interstate in a long time, so the public got used to the idea and embraced it. at, too, will happen with auton- omy, but slower – like pouring molasses through a sieve. e third group, the fearmongers, comes in two subsets: e ones who have watched the killer-car movie "Christine" a few too many times, and the ones who predict major economic upheaval. According to a report from the Center for Global Policy Solutions, 2.86 percent of all U.S. workers are employed in driving occupations, and that same report predicts that more than 4 million of those jobs likely will be eliminated with a "rapid transi- tion" to autonomous vehicles. F rom being run over by robot trucks to potential increases in freight efficiency, whether you love the idea of autono- mous vehicles or hate them, there's no shortage of naysayers, cheerleaders and fearmongers. e naysayers are the group who claim this technology is more "Jet- sons" than reality, and I think this pop- ulation of people shrinks a little more every day. We all should be able to agree that this probably is going to happen. We can debate when, and we're about to. e cheerleaders are the ones who comb the headlines daily for results of Otto and Embark tests, and the ones who follow every turn the Google car makes. Optimists by nature, I think this group has set themselves up most for disappointment because the pace of commercialization in this space simply isn't moving fast enough for them. I'm somewhere in the middle. I foresee way too many technological and legislative hurdles in both the near and PRODUCT REVIEWS, OEM & SUPPLIER NEWS AND EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT TRENDS BY JASON CANNON AUTONOMOUS ANGST: People are afraid of this technology and have made that pretty clear. MANY OBSTACLES: I can't foresee self-driving trucks blowing up the labor force anytime soon. DIFFERENT ROLES: I think many of the jobs lost with larger carriers will remain in trucking. When the robots come for our jobs Autonomous vehicles likely to come later, not sooner While much of the assembly process at Ford's plants is automated, the company still employs about 8,000 workers there.

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