Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered about fuel efficient trucks. A number of 'design the future' efforts include them but they rarely make it to the road. The industry doesn't seem to care enough to make the investment.

I really think that self driving fuel efficient trucks on their own "truckways" would be a pretty good way to boost transport infrastructure quickly.

View on HN

In some ways, you describe freight rail. Freight rail in the United States is great. We use it a lot more than Europe (probably about 4x more) and the fuel efficiency gains are huge for freight rail. It isn't self-driving, but it is on dedicated tracks with minimal people needed given the long length that trains can be.

I think this is the reason why the industry doesn't seem to care: they do care, but they've already invested in freight rail which is even more efficient. It's going to be hard to beat freight rail's efficiency and at what cost? Trucking does have greater flexibility and is needed to do shorter distances and last-mile stuff, but we already have fuel-efficient trucks on their own truckways: it's freight rail.

Yes, and the trucking industry stopped fighting freight rail years ago and now makes use of it.

Trucks are more flexible, sure, but to get that flexibility they trade off operating efficiency. This is why many long haul trucking companies such as J.B. Hunt [1] and even UPS [2] now make use of intermodal shipping. [3]

It's not commonly known that packages sent via UPS Ground frequently travel on trains. As a general rule, UPS Ground packages traveling long distances across the U.S. are shipped by train. [4]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Hunt

[2] http://www.ups-scs.com/transportation/rail.html

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_freight_transport

[4] http://compass.ups.com/processes-of-package-in-transit/

An enormous part of the industry consists of contracting owner/operators hauling client (third-party) trailers. That is true even of many of the "fleet-looking" tractors you see on the road; the "fleet" is more of a contracting agency for nominally independent operators than an actual fleet, and the livery just means that the trucker contracts with the agency (the truck itself is either driver-owned or is on a rent-to-own sort of arrangement that makes the "no payments until 2075!!!" furniture guys look good). Since most of the benefits (streamling, regenerative braking, etc.) can only occur in paired tractor/trailer rigs, it's only those outfits that own both ends that can implement much, and then only if they have no retirement sales in mind.

Commercial vehicles are utilitarian above all. Efficient semi truck designs pop up all the time but they always fail because they sacrifice ease of service to achieve their gains in efficiency. If a Volvo semi breaks down while hauling one of Wal-Mart's JIT deliveries it can be repaired by any shop in hours. If a highly proprietary semi breaks down then it's hosed. Either Wal-Mart rush processes another truck to that store or they eat a lost delivery and make up the missing inventory over the next few trucks.

Repairing all the advanced, low production volume technology in that truck is a lot more expensive. Add the significant amount of money lost when JIT deliveries fall days behind and the expenses far outweigh the fuel savings.

And self driving busses could run there too. Maybe rebuild the old fashioned legacy railways as modern truck-bus-ways.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com