Why People Are Wrong About Driverless Vehicles And The Trucking Industry
It’s no secret that technology is transforming the business world and autonomous car tech is likely to have a big impact. There are a lot of people out there speculating that the trucking industry as we know it is dying and in the next few decades, truckers will be completely obsolete.
That might seem fairly likely because, why would a business pay somebody to drive a truck when they can get a computer to do it for free? However, the trucking and logistics industry is more complex than people give it credit for and there are a lot of other factors to consider. The industry is in constant flux and if you listen to experts like Miguel Denga, you can start building a picture of what the future of the trucking industry might look like. You will soon come to realize that the assumption that truckers will become obsolete because of driverless vehicles is based on an oversimplification of the industry and there are, in fact, many reasons why automation won’t take over completely. Here are some of the big reasons why driverless vehicles are not going to destroy the trucking industry as we know it.
Full Automation Is A Long Way Off
We’ve seen some big jumps in driverless vehicle technology in the last couple of years and some of them are on the road, but full automation is still a long way off. If you wanted to start a delivery company, you’d still have to do the driving yourself for a long while before you can rely on the car to do it for you. By law, you still need a driver behind the wheel, ready to take control of the car. There have been instances of fatal crashes when the driver hasn’t been following those guidelines. Although the tech has improved a lot, there are still serious issues and it will be a long time before we can put our complete faith in automation technology.
Truckers Don’t Just Drive Trucks
This is the point that a lot of people with little knowledge of the industry tend to miss. Although the main job of a truck driver is to drive the truck, they also do a lot of other things. They service and maintain the vehicle, they keep logs of deliveries, they interact with clients and provide customer service. These are all things that cannot be easily automated, so switching to a driverless vehicle means you miss out on a lot of other benefits.
Driverless Vehicles Are Incredibly Expensive
If you wanted to, you could invest in driverless trucks that are being developed right now. The thing is, these vehicles are incredibly expensive so, even though you will save money on driver costs, it will take a long time for those savings to outweigh the initial cost of the truck. You also need to find a huge amount of capital to invest in the first place, so it’s going to be more financially viable for most companies to stick with truckers for a while at least.
There is a lot of scare stories about driverless vehicles destroying the trucking industry but, in reality, driverless vehicles won’t upset things for a long time to come.
