And people build new towns that the trains can't go

The port guys too

Flatbed is safe because you have to have a guy working the load every 2 hours

Reefer is eh

It'll all find ways of connecting.

But aside from that and maybe certain tankers trucking is easily automated

So why do you think they've waited so long?

Because the tech wasnt there

It is very nearly now

As tech advances and becomes cheaper it becomes less ideal to have humans involved

Isn't it because they would rather have the new trucks (which are significant investments) be additions to the fleet rather than replacements to the easy manual machines?

YOu didn't use to need a degree to fix a truck.

You still dont

Computer does all the diagnktic heavy lifting

Having to essentially take the whole front end apart because there's a PC on top of the engine makes modern cars a huge pain to deal with.

Indeed

However that doesnt detract the fact that if the company replaces 4k jobs with robots, you dont get 4k jobs back as repair techs

Those jobs are gone

Most truckers are middle aged with health problems

They dont get a second chance in most cases

I had an argument like this one time with someone who was a big proponent or small mind blown with the concept of electric cars

Like, you're not getting an eletric semi

You dont need one

Not till battery tech improves

The battery for that wouldn't be worth the energy and time cost for the sheer amount of torque you'd need

Like he was arguing that the whole of the trucking industry should die to cease pollution

Electric engines have better torque than conbustion

Its why teslas utterly spank lambos in drag races

The problem being you dont have the battery tech to operate an electric motor of that size

Not for the range needed for long haul trucks

You go for twelve hours, you need 20 hours to recharge instead of ten minutes at the gas station

Not really

And of course, you'd need the infrastructure to put out that much electricity for truck consumption

The supercharger stations can refill your battery in 20 minutes

Guarantee those would b everywhere

As for electricity

Nuclear and geothermal

Not to mention you save power and weight by not having a cab on the automated truck

Whenever service goes down; there is always more place for people in infrastructure, you could be the guy who helps set up those superchargers, they won't set up themselves.

Indeed

But that doesnt fully replace jobs lost by driving