LiDAR (laser radar) beams of a Waymo autonomous rotate at eye level while it waits at an intersection in the Mission District of San Francisco in June of 2022. LiDAR systems are how autonomous taxi's and trucks see a three-dimensional environment in real time. Waymo is already operating an entire fleet of fully driverless taxi's in Phoenix, Arizona.
A Crash Course in Autonomous Trucking
By James Year
There are critical information gaps within the trucking community about how and when self-driving trucks or autonomous trucks will arrive. One thing is certain: the profitability of these machines will dictate their arrival. Autonomous trucks are already hauling freight. The first autonomous trucking company has launched the first driverless semi-truck on our interstates in April of 2025. The goal of this article is to condense what drivers need to know, while providing some resources for additional reading and discussion.
Driving Down Freight Rates
The tech developers are telling their investors some interesting things about this technology. According to the investor presentations, an autonomous truck will allegedly be able to cut up to 40 percent of current driver related per-mile freight costs. Analysts have found that the total cost of ownership and operation could be reduced anywhere between 15-20% overall, depending on a multitude of factors. There are no human driven trucking companies that will be able to compete with that capability. Family owned and independently run trucking companies will not be able to afford the equipment and insurances costs to compete in this new high-tech market. Based on the investor rhetoric, it appears that this technology is intended to consolidate the trucking industry and drive increases in profitability, at the expense of drivers.
The problem that any type of automation is trying to solve is the human problem. This view-point is consistent throughout autonomous trucking developers.
Aurora Trucking stated in their 2021 investor memo that they believe their technology will create a virtuous cycle. This means that autonomous trucks will create a self-reinforcing chain of events where that technology will effectively create its own demand. The economics of innovation is entirely unforgiving. For drivers, this translates to if one company adopts it and lowers rates, they will be forcing their competition to follow suit or risk being put out of business. We have seen this dynamic play out repeatedly since the first industrial revolution, from the steam engine and all the to smartphones. The first one to market reaps the lions share of the rewards.
Aurora expects this cycle to consolidate the self-driving industry with “winner takes most dynamics.” Aurora Trucking even want so far to compare this massive economic potential to the digitalization of advertising where Google and Facebook now dominate over 70 percent of the advertising market. That comparison is alarming and underscores the severity of this issue, with the effects that outcome would have on the labor market and rural communities who could be disproportionately impacted by this technology.
Aurora believes that autonomous trucks will create a "virtuous cycle." This means that it will create a domino effect in the market where autonomous trucks will create their own demand based on their speed and cost savings.
The other advantage that self driving trucks have is that they won’t have to be restricted by Hours of Service regulations. They are being advertised to operate around the clock. The utilization rate of autonomous trucks will be up to 2.5 times higher than a human driven truck. Auroras recent investor presentation from February of 2025 echoes that same prediction. The implication here is that 1,000 autonomous trucks could be able to do the work of over 2,000 human drivers.
This capability, coupled with fuel and labor cost savings, risks flooding the market with cheap freight, while pushing drivers out of the targeted markets and into less automatable types of trucking. Labor surpluses have a tendency to drive down wages, compensation, and rates. If this comes out at scale and grows rapidly, desperate drivers with an expensive lease to cover will be fighting for any opportunity they can get, in flat bedding, hazmat, heavy haul or oversized roles. Autonomous trucks could be a "double whammy" by directly pressuring rates by undercutting them and through the labor surplus in other similar markets.
"Transportation is one of the largest sectors of the economy globally and has the potential to create enormous value for investors as it becomes automated," said Aurora Trucking in their 2021 Investor presentation. In this slide Aurora is comparing the monopolization of advertising to the potential of autonomous trucking.
Methods, Regions, and Timeline
Autonomous trucks are targeting the “simplest” aspects of trucking first. Predominantly in long haul and line haul, and especially in the dry van, reefer, wiggle wagons, intermodal, and parcel markets. The most likely way that this will work is through a “transfer hub model.” Autonomous trucks will operate in a relay, focusing on the middle mile, from onramp to offramp on interstates. Then human drivers will take it to the final destination. Tech developers have stated that the transfer hub model plays to the strengths of autonomous trucks by having them focus in a much more structured, predictable, and safer environment, compared to urban driving.
But one of the things that isn't being said to regulators, truckers, and the general public is that this transfer hub model is intended to be temporary. In 2022, Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora Trucking, told investors that this technology will soon become capable of going from warehouse-to-warehouse and eventually dock-to-dock. That statement undermines what Aurora Trucking, The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association and the American Trucking Association claimed to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in September 2023, that autonomous trucking will allegedly create more, better, and higher paying local driving jobs for truckers. That claim also ignores other tech companies like Nuro and Gatik.AI, who are automating those very same last mile delivery and local driving jobs. Every part of the supply chain is now facing similar types of automation.
Autonomous trucking developers are targeting the middle mile first to maximize the return on investment and mitigate liability through this "transfer hub model." At scale, this could risk creating a labor surplus in affected markets by pushing more drivers to compete for local driving jobs, while also consolidating trucking jobs into metropolitan areas.
The transfer hub model can also work in tandem with a method called platooning, where a human driver will lead a “platoon” of several autonomous trucks directly behind them. This method also allows for even better fuel economy from very close following distances and reduces wind resistance, despite the inherent safety risks and increased wear and tear on public infrastructure. Both of these methods will restructure the trucking industry, not only in terms of business but also in geography. If the transfer hubs are concentrated near large urban areas, it could effectively cut off rural family-owned trucking businesses, while simultaneously lowering the freight rates they depend on to survive.
Aurora Innovation and several of their competitors are focusing on Texas and the southern United States first. This is mainly due to favorable weather and permissive regulations in those states. They are also targeting high density freight lanes (which are around the most people) to maximize their return on investment. Aurora Innovation and Kodiak Robotics have both successfully launched their trucks in 2025. Depending on the continued success of that launch, Aurora has manufacturing partnerships with Volvo and Paccar to scale production rapidly.
Based on their 2021 investor report, they expect their autonomous lanes to reach the northern U.S. and New England by 2030. Aurora's 2024 investor presentation claimed that they intent to hit 2 billion driverless miles and impact a 50 billion mile trucking market by the end of 2028. This is just a rough estimate but I think they will need approximately 10,000 autonomous trucks to hit that target, which would do the work 20,000 drivers and likely at lower rates than any other company could compete against.
Autonomous trucks will first appear commercially in Texas, then spread throughout the southern United States due to weather considerations. The developers usually are targeting high density freight routes first to maximize their return on investment. Texas is also ideal because it features those high-density freight routes within a single state and has permissive regulatory policies.
It’s also important to note that Aurora has several competitors, primarily Plus.AI, Torc Robotics and Kodiak. In 2021, Amazon placed an order to Plus.AI for 1,000 retrofit kits to begin upgrading their existing fleet with a “driver-in solution,” that will kick out the driver when those trucks have accumulated enough real-world driver data. According to reporting from Freightwaves, that order was being filled at scale as of 2022 and Plus.AI claims to have over 10,000 orders between the U.S. and China. Aurora may be the first to kick the driver out, but Plus.AI and Amazon could be the first to do it at scale, when the algorithm is deemed "acceptably safe" for business.
Like the space race, autonomous driving technologies are also dual use in nature and can be adapted for military purposes. The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, or AVIA, has been lobbying federal legislators to ensure their member's technology is able to be sold in foreign markets. One of their members, Kodiak Trucking, has government contracts to apply their technology to autonomous weapon systems for the US Military. Several other autonomous trucking companies like TuSimple and Plus are also intending to sell their autonomous systems in China.
The low cost ($17,500) and fast installation of Plus.AI's retrofit kits for autonomous trucks gives this company a significant advantage by scaling far faster than their competition. Amazon ordered 1,000 units in 2021. Plus's business model plans to gradually evolve into a driverless system with currently existing truck fleets.
The Driverless Road to Market
Self-driving truck have to overcome significant obstacles to make them commercially viable. The hardware is the easy part. Each self-driving truck uses multiple sets of cameras, radars, and LiDAR’s (laser radar) to work together to perceive a three-dimensional world around them in real time. That data is fed to an onboard computer algorithm which decides how to interpret it and make educated decisions based on the algorithm's training data. Getting that hardware to “think” and act appropriately with the right training data on our interstates is the hard part.
An Aurora autonomouos truck heads south on I-45 from its hub in Palmer, Texas in July of 2023. Autonomous trucks can be identified by large sensor pods that are either above the driver and passenger doors (Aurora) or placed on the front of the rearview mirrors. (Kodiak and Plus.AI)
The developers are close to solving that problem. But there is a famous saying in the tech industry from Tom Cargill, of Bell Labs, who said, “The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.” Solving the last few percentage points in autonomous trucking is a monumental undertaking. This will only be solved by accumulating gargantuan amounts of data and then distilling the algorithm down to a size that can be run by commercially available computer hardware.
Plus.AI’s strategy to get that volume of data is to mass produce inexpensive retrofit kits and launch a system at scale early to reach their goal of 8 billion real world driving miles. Aurora Trucking’s strategy differs by creating purpose-built machines and getting that data through “simulated miles” with virtual driving programs, similar to video games. As of 2021, they were generating 22 million miles of simulation data per day to train their algorithm. Aurora Trucking claims these simulations give them an advantage by being able to replicate and train their algorithm repeatedly on rare incidents. This method may very well create some advantages. But a computer simulation is a programmer's interpretation of the real world. Reality is excruciatingly difficult to program.
But even with high levels of autonomy and a successful launch, challenges remain. A 99 percent autonomy rate could mean that over a thousand-mile journey, human intervention would likely still be a good idea for approximately ten of those miles—an interval where many unpredictable events can occur, sometimes in just a matter of feet. Aurora has acknowledged that its systems will never reach full autonomy due to mechanical breakdowns, tire blowouts, and other unforeseen circumstances.
Ultimately, no matter how high the autonomy percentage, machine failures are inevitable, and driverless trucks will pose risks to public safety. The focus for the industry is currently on reducing liability and risk to a level considered "acceptably safe" for commercial deployment.
The lateral rotating beams of Aurora's First Light LIDAR (laser radar) can be seen reflecting off their trailer during a run to Houston, Texas on I-45 in July of 2023. These systems help build a three-dimensional environment in real time to help the system navigate and perceive threats.
Even with high levels of autonomy, challenges remain. A 99 percent success rate means that over a thousand-mile journey, human intervention would still be necessary for approximately ten miles—an interval where many unpredictable events can occur, sometimes in just a matter of feet. Aurora has acknowledged that its systems will never reach full autonomy due to mechanical breakdowns, tire blowouts, and other unforeseen circumstances.
Ultimately, no matter how high the autonomy percentage, machine failures are inevitable, and driverless trucks will pose risks to public safety. The focus for the industry is currently on reducing liability and risk to a level considered "acceptably safe" for commercial deployment.
A Waymo autonomous taxi as seen in San Francisco in June of 2022. Waymo is owned by Google's parent company Alphabet and is currently operating a fully driverless fleet of taxi's in Phoenix Arizona. The sign is from Workato and says "Automate the work out of finance. Integrate anything. Automate everything."
The Biggest Picture
Autonomous trucks are just one example of a broader challenge facing Americans today. The same artificial intelligence (A.I.) technologies are being applied across industries, leading to substantial economic disruptions. Meanwhile, other similarly transformative advancements in quantum computing and robotics—potentially commercially viable by the end of the decade—are on the horizon. Despite warnings from academia regarding the scale and speed of these changes, the associated risks do not appear to be receiving the serious attention they warrant.
Historically, disruptive technologies like the steam engine caused short-term upheaval and economic hardship for displaced workers. However, over time—often generations—new opportunities emerged, leading to overall improvements in quality of life. The concern with A.I. is that its exponential growth may prevent similar job creation from materializing. As it continues to advance, A.I. will shift economic advantages away from humans and toward machines, becoming progressively faster, cheaper, and more accurate across a growing set of tasks. This could lead to large-scale technological unemployment, breaking the precedent of job creation that has persisted for over 300 years—posing significant socioeconomic and political challenges.
Debates are already underway about how to address this issue. One of the most discussed solutions is Universal Basic Income (UBI), which would distribute regular payments to individuals funded by A.I.-driven profits. Notable figures across the political spectrum, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Larry Page, and Sam Altman, have expressed support for UBI or similar proposals. However, in 2019, Kai Fu Lee, founder of Google China, criticized the idea, stating: “It’s a painkiller, something to numb and sedate the people who have been hurt by the adoption of AI. And that numbing effect goes both ways: not only does it ease the pain for those displaced by technology; it also assuages the conscience of those who do the displacing.”
Support for a Universal Basic Income or similar initiatives suggests an implicit recognition of a future that demands serious discussion and consensus from those who may be adversely impacted by A.I. A UBI is unnecessary if people can earn a living and sustain the economy. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that displaced workers will find it sufficient, especially if it fails to mitigate downward social mobility. The trajectory of current technological advancements is expected to deepen existing social, political, and economic inequalities while introducing new and unforeseen challenges.
Ultimately, A.I. may prove to be the technological force that reshapes society for the better, but the challenge lies in ensuring a stable transition. America needs an open and honest dialogue about the economic implications of these changes and how to mitigate their most disruptive effects.
The goal must be to find a path forward that serves the broader public interest. The tech industry is building a new god that's being driven by greed. We all deserve something better than what we're getting now.
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