Sensors and their ranges aren't the right thing to point to. Off-the-shelf options are typically geared towards the ranges useful for passenger vehicles because that's where the volume is, but with money and time one can design something different. It's possible to achieve a sensible link budget for lidar or radar at much-longer ranges. The sensors will be bigger, they'll consume more power, and they'll cost more. But it's totally achievable.
There are a lot of differences between passenger vehicles and trucks. The physical dynamics of articulated vehicles, the mission profile, and social dynamics come to mind. How does a robotruck place cones or flares while it awaits rescue?
Personally, I expect autonomous trucking to be a force-multiplier for humans who were formerly drivers. Such trucks will have sleeper cabs and the human will be there to maintain the vehicle and handle the long tail of tasks (filling tires, cleaning, refueling, repairs, rigging, whatever). You'll get 24-hour operation out of a single human employee because they'll be able to sleep and do other things most of the time. Maybe they'll work a second job as a remote call-center operator.
Most high end sensors, especially lidars, are targeted at L4 applications. Otherwise the price cannot be justified. It’s a safe bet that sensor makers are including AV developers in their market research.
For lidar, the range is also limited by power limits + physics, which cannot be overcome by increasing money/power/device size. Some dependencies on semiconductor manufacturing tech or better signal processing might be possible to solve with more money.
LiDAR transmit power is practically only limited by eye safety. And retinas are fixed size while the aperture of your transceiver isn't. Get a big lens and you can transmit a lot of power and collect a lot of reflected photos.
Long-haul trucking is potentially easier but we already have a great system for delivering large amounts of cargo along fixed, guided pathways. The only problems that making it run on roads instead of rails solves is political - the US is allergic to owning and funding rails but will happily dump tens of billions into its government-owned roads every year.
Short-haul trucking (in-city delivery etc) is where the value is in having agile, self-driving vehicles moving cargo away from supply points… but it’s also the hardest to implement because there are so many dynamic elements in city driving. And largely these light delivery vehicles are already being electrified where it makes sense (UPS, USPS, etc). You are mostly talking about it any advantage coming from removing a human, not the act of rolling electric vehicles into it like taxis where it’s primarily disrupting internal combustion with electric.
Also, any system is eventually going to be utilized at its full capacity. The number of vehicles supervised per agent will increase until the average number of incidents at any one time meets the average number of agents, or beyond, until there is a regulation. Capitalism is a cost optimizer and no cost will ever go unsqueezed - much like the internet is designed to route around network damage, capitalism is designed to route around any such inefficiency as morals or safety standards until otherwise compelled by regulation.
> The only problems that making it run on roads instead of rails solves is political - [...]
You say it like this is a point against autonomous trucking?
Technical problems are solvable. Political and social problems are basically intractable in practice.
If autonomous driving can turn 'delivering large amounts of cargo along fixed, guided pathways' from a political into a technical problem, then this would be a jackpot.
> [...] capitalism is designed to route around any such inefficiency as morals or safety standards until otherwise compelled by regulation.
No? Plenty of eg cars exceed minimum safety standards. Some brands, like Volvo, are even explicitly sold on safety. Most companies explicitly talk up their morals and ethics, too. Look at almost any old advertisement for examples. Ethical brands are quite popular, and whenever one is found to be only pretending, there's usually a big scandal. So many of them actually practice what they preach.
Similarly, most people are paid more than regulated minimums. According to your theory, that shouldn't happen.
>No? Plenty of eg cars exceed minimum safety standards. Some brands, like Volvo, are even explicitly sold on safety.
In the context you're discussing, that form of safety isn't an inefficiency but a marketable feature. That doesn't mean that safety in general is a marketable feature.
Those safety standards tend to omit the safety of any pedestrians being hit - otherwise, cars would be far lighter (and with bonnets far lower), because a heavier car benefits the occupants in a crash at the expense of whoever they're hitting.
You are right. I agree that cars should be taxed (at least partially) based on weight.
However, you don't really need new regulations for this. Tightening liability for drivers, instead of letting them get away with a slap on the wrist when they kill a pedestrian or cyclists etc would probably suffice.
At the moment, we mostly do victim blaming instead. When you operate a death machine, you should be responsible for any kills, and not be able to hide behind 'it was an accident'.
> Tightening liability for drivers, instead of letting them get away with a slap on the wrist when they kill a pedestrian or cyclists etc would probably suffice.
That really can only happen if the roads are improved enough that drivers can’t cast reasonable doubt around when an accident occurs. Like a road used as a main car route, but has lots of on street parking to obscure pedestrians and bicycles, and also has a lot of them. Yes, the car should be liable, but when the report is taken they find that the car’s view f the victim was completely obscured anyways. We have to really go Dutch on our road design before we can go Dutch on our car liability enforcement.
What do you mean by reasonable doubt? If you are in a car and you hit someone, it should be your fault.
If the road is bad, you should drive slow enough that it's not dangerous.
If you can't see anything, because there are cars parked, perhaps you shouldn't drive, or only drive very slowly. It should be your responsibility as a driver to only drive when the view ain't obscured.
When I'm eg running around with a knife, or discharging a gun and injure someone, I don't get to make excuses like the above either. Why should drivers be allowed to blame the victim or circumstances?
Again, the fact that the roads are designed so poorly for this still gives drivers too much sympathy from authorities, regulators, and the general public. It literally can happen to anyone who decides to drive at all, given that visibility is so messed up.
The ditch will heavily sanction a driver and go through a likely redesign when an accident happens. You can’t just expect drivers to do the right thing, you have to also make right things possible. The American approach of “let’s require drivers to develop precognition” is just ridiculously stupid.
The American approach is just idiotic all around. It gives plenty of plausible “accident” explanation given crappy road designs and the lack of will to fix them.
I tell my kid that it will be the car’s fault if they hit you when you are walking out into the street behind some parked cars, but even if they pay some money you’ll still be dead. This is not just about cars being liable (like seriously, get rid of on street parking if you are going to have lots of cyclists and pedestrians on that busy through fare, Seattle sucks at this).
There are a lot of differences between passenger vehicles and trucks. The physical dynamics of articulated vehicles, the mission profile, and social dynamics come to mind. How does a robotruck place cones or flares while it awaits rescue?
Personally, I expect autonomous trucking to be a force-multiplier for humans who were formerly drivers. Such trucks will have sleeper cabs and the human will be there to maintain the vehicle and handle the long tail of tasks (filling tires, cleaning, refueling, repairs, rigging, whatever). You'll get 24-hour operation out of a single human employee because they'll be able to sleep and do other things most of the time. Maybe they'll work a second job as a remote call-center operator.