Last year, I jumped behind the wheel of a semi-truck to learn what it takes to get a commercial driver鈥檚 license.
The country is short about 80,000 , according to the American Trucking Association. And schools like the one I went to in Phoenix are busy trying to keep up.
At the time, instructor Tim Kerstein told me about a company down the road in Tucson called TuSimple, which is making deliveries in semi-trucks without drivers.
鈥淚t is an automated truck driving company. It鈥檚 here. It鈥檚 not going to stop. It鈥檚 going to only get better,鈥� Kerstein said. 鈥淏ut trucks are not going to fill themselves. They鈥檙e not going to unload themselves. There鈥檚 going to be a demand for drivers for decades to come.鈥�
That was enough to get me down to Tucson, where TuSimple is making deliveries in decked-out rigs. Koabi Brooks, TuSimple鈥檚 director of technical operations, says the company鈥檚 trucks have cameras all around the outside.
As we walk around the truck I can see that it鈥檚 loaded up with technology, though most of the antennas, cameras and sensors that allow this truck to drive on its own are easy to miss. LiDAR sensors help with field detection and GPS tells the truck where to go.
鈥淚 think the average passenger car passes this truck on the highway without two thoughts,鈥� Brooks says.
Brooks is my guide on a test ride up Interstate 10, right through the heart of Tucson. If all goes well the computer will navigate on ramps, avoid motorcycles and landscaping trucks changing lanes at 75-miles per hour, and slow down for emergency vehicles on the shoulder.
We climb into the back of the cab, strap in and then meet two other people up front. One is an engineer in the passenger seat there to read the data streaming in from the computer. And Randy Redwine is in the driver鈥檚 seat ready to take over in case something goes wrong.
Redwine says he鈥檚 made two trips in the truck this morning without intervention. He enjoys watching the trucks improve鈥� but it鈥檚 something he didn鈥檛 see coming when he started driving 40 years ago.
鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 even imagine it, no, that a truck could drive itself,鈥� Redwine says. 鈥淏ut here we are.鈥�
To start the 60-mile trip, Redwine pushes a button and his hands come off the wheel.
Before we share in the experience of riding in a robot truck, let鈥檚 understand why it鈥檚 on the road in the first place.
TuSimple鈥檚 Cheng Lu says the company wants to reshape the $4 trillion global freight industry by solving the mismatch between supply and demand for drivers and trucks
Lu says his colleagues joke about how the company is automating 鈥渢he most boring truck routes,鈥� long-haul routes that require drivers to be away from home for two to three weeks. These routes have the most turnover and are most impacted by the driver shortage, he says.
鈥淚f we can make those routes autonomous, then that frees up our human drivers to do the first mile, last mile, to do the e-commerce deliveries,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd that allows everyone to be more efficient.鈥�
Last-mile jobs aren鈥檛 nearly as lucrative as long-haul trucking jobs, which pay well. Lu says that despite this, the difficulty of driving long routes makes it hard to recruit and retain workers. He thinks TuSimple鈥檚 technology is the solution to the shortage.
When I met Lu in February inside the company鈥檚 sprawling Tucson warehouse, he was TuSimple鈥檚 CEO. He has since stepped into an advisory role, which caught investors off guard. The company is also yet to turn a profit and its stock has fallen about 70% since going public a year ago.
But last December, the start-up reached a key milestone: One of its trucks made a delivery from Tucson to Phoenix without a backup driver behind the wheel. In fact, there was no one in the truck at all. It鈥檚 called a driver-out run 鈥� and this was an industry first.
For Lu, attempting the 80-mile run required a great deal of confidence on the company鈥檚 part. Over six years, the company鈥檚 100 trucks drove 6 million miles to prepare, he says.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very significant because it demonstrates that we鈥檙e safe,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do driver out run if there鈥檚 something you haven鈥檛 figured out.鈥�
TuSumple has more work ahead to scale up, Lu says, but he鈥檚 confident that the trucks can cover that 80 mile route without a human driver.
Or a lot more work, according to Phil Koopman. It doesn鈥檛 make sense to remove the backup driver for safety testing, says the self-driving safety expert for 25 years and Carnegie Mellon professor.
TuSimple鈥檚 6 million miles on the road is sort of irrelevant: In this country, a fatal crash happens every . And there isn鈥檛 any data to suggest that computers are safer drivers than humans, Koopman says.
To its credit, he says TuSimple is following safety standards that other companies don鈥檛 and is among the most transparent in the industry.
鈥淭he risk is that you have these companies that are chasing valuation, that are chasing being first to market, and there鈥檚 tremendous incentive 鈥� billions of dollars 鈥� to just get out on the road,鈥� Koopman says. 鈥淎nd given that there鈥檚 no regulations dealing with software safety, the companies are deciding when they鈥檙e ready.鈥�
When it comes to the driver shortage, Koopman says it鈥檚 an excuse to get on the road even faster.
鈥淭here are other ways to solve the driver shortage than by inventing self-driving trucks,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou could pay the drivers more and treat them better.鈥�
Back in the Tucson warehouse, there鈥檚 no question that companies are clamoring to be first.
Jim Monkmeyer is the president of transportation for DHL Supply Chain, one of the largest shipping companies in the world. The company is seeing costs and wages increase by double digits, he says, which is raising prices for consumers. But he says autonomous driving could help.
DHL plans to buy 100 TuSimple trucks and recently hired the company to ship air conditioning equipment from San Antonio to Dallas. Monkmeyer says autonomous trucks run this route every week.
鈥淲ithout the need for stopping for driver breaks, those trucks can move across the country in fewer days. What might be a three-day transit could be done by autonomous trucking one to two days,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 really game-changing for us in terms of getting product faster and faster to the end customer.鈥�
Quicker routes save the company and consumers money, he says. And getting these trucks first could give the company a competitive advantage.
In the meantime, as TuSimple continues to test new routes, you might see a robot truck like the one I rode in sometime soon.
It鈥檚 exciting and scary all at the same time, much like the moment when the 72-foot truck Brooks and I were riding in slowly turned left at a green light. The truck stopped to decide what to do, moving forward after one oncoming vehicle passed.
Ready or not, here they come.
produced and edited this interview for broadcast with . adapted it for the web.
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