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Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathguy
Trains carry the equivalent of hundreds of semis and are a vastly cheaper means of delivery.
If the load is already deliverable by train, it's not a rival for trucking and vice-versa.
So basically, the answer there is zero absorb.
It's generally dry goods that aren't time sensitive being transported by train, and even then, tracks don't go everywhere, so trucks are needed for the "Last mile"
It's generally dry goods that aren't time sensitive being transported by train, and even then, tracks don't go everywhere, so trucks are needed for the "Last mile"
I saw a Domino's Pizza commercial today where they were advertising their driver-less pizza delivery vehicles.
These will be the bulk of deliveries from most big chains soon, as they lose too much revenue when door dash/ubereats, etc are the middle men. Far cheaper to operate small driverless vehicles, plus it gets there on time, as you are not competing with other deliveries.
I would bet the big boxes such as Wal Mart offer similar delivery services soon, as well.
When I moved 1000 miles across country from Missouri to New Mexico the movers left my old home when I did. I stopped halfway at a motel and drove on to my destination the next day and beat them by 20 minutes. But they stopped in San Antonio to drop off a household load, picked up another new load, drove to Houston and dropped off a load and then went to my new home near Albuquerque and almost beat me there. They had crews lined up at each stop to load or unload and only two guys managed the truck. I don't think I would hire a driverless truck company to move my stuff.
We have drivers on the road who are incompetent and unpredictable and they are "saved" by the skill of other drivers evading their faults and foolishness. Eventually there will be serious safety issues, possibly a Hindenburg event that effectively ends the driverless craze. If any added infrastructure is required to ensure safety it should not be taxpayer paid but paid by the trucking companies or driverless vehicle owners.
These will be the bulk of deliveries from most big chains soon, as they lose too much revenue when door dash/ubereats, etc are the middle men. Far cheaper to operate small driverless vehicles, plus it gets there on time, as you are not competing with other deliveries.
I would bet the big boxes such as Wal Mart offer similar delivery services soon, as well.
It will be interesting to see how adoption is affected by this last year with CV19. Specifically, the one thing that these delivery mechanisms can't achieve to literal "to the door" delivery. With a human, they leave the product at your front door, with an autonomous system the user pretty much _has_ to go out and pick up their product. This might be both a major impediment to adoption by consumers (since it's not as convenient as to the door delivery) as well as having a serious impact of the theoretical efficiency of an autonomous delivery system (the vehicle has to wait until the customer comes and gets their product).
It will be interesting to see how adoption is affected by this last year with CV19. Specifically, the one thing that these delivery mechanisms can't achieve to literal "to the door" delivery. With a human, they leave the product at your front door, with an autonomous system the user pretty much _has_ to go out and pick up their product. This might be both a major impediment to adoption by consumers (since it's not as convenient as to the door delivery) as well as having a serious impact of the theoretical efficiency of an autonomous delivery system (the vehicle has to wait until the customer comes and gets their product).
True, but I could also see address numbers being bar coded up the road at some point (starting with apartment complexes), which would make leaving a delivery at a specific spot quite easy.
For now, a human would need to pick up their stuff, but then again, nothing stops the corp delivering from having its vehicle time how long it waits before leaving, and having the customer previously sign a disclaimer stating in that event, the customer is not entitled to a refund.
Ford has not abandoned LIDAR, nor am I aware of any other folks doing so. The problem with vision only systems is the same as human vision systems, it can be fooled because there is a huge difference between what we think we see and what is actually there. The reason for several of the current Tesla accidents is that their vision systems were fooled into thinking it was seeing something that did not reflect reality. This is where LIDAR (or even RADAR) comes in, since they are better at detecting actual objects. The point is utilizing sensor fusion to make a more robust system.
You're probably right. I was reading a review of the Lightning that indicated they were going vision-only, like Tesla. But most journalists don't work to hard to fact check their statements, could well be wrong.
One thing I haven't been able to find out on Tesla (or any other camera systems) is what camera technology/wavelength they are operating on. I would imagine some form of IR or something similar to a "night vision" system to identify objects in low-light conditions. But I haven't been able to verify that.
It's worth noting that ALL the Teslas involved in Autopilot accidents HAD radar. It's only in the last few weeks where it was dropped and vehicles started shipping without it. According to Tesla, part of the problem is that they depended on radar rather than vision in accident avoidance, especially auto-braking. And...radar "saw" under vehicles (a tractor trailer in at least one case) and the system didn't brake to avoid it.
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