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Hello and welcome to SAE UNPLUGGED, I am your host Grayson Brulte.
As we head into 2024, the autonomous vehicle and truck industries are at a crossroads. A crossroads that is being fed by special interests, misconceptions, and downright lies. Headlines, misleading tweets and a Netflix movie are all feeding into this supposed hysteria.
What hides behind this layer of inaccuracy and hysteria is the truth. The truth is that the autonomous vehicle and truck industries are healthy and it’s thriving.
That’s right, the autonomous vehicle and truck industries are healthy. Waymo, Zoox and Motional all continue to make progress in developing and scaling their robotaxi fleets. Kodiak, Torc, Waabi and Aurora continue to make progress in developing and scaling their autonomous truck fleets. Waymo is generating revenue today. Kodiak is generating revenue today. Waymo’s robotaxis are performing at an extremely high-level in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. Last week, I tested out the latest version of the Waymo driver in San Francisco and I came away impressed.
During that same trip, I was able to ride in the Kodiak truck on surface streets and highway, and it performed extremely well. Looking at the market today for robotaxis, the market is clearly dominated by
Waymo and for good reason. Their tech works and they are taking a diligent approach to rolling out and scaling their robotaxi service. They are engaging with the local communities and doing community outreach such as the Autonomous Ride-Hailing Tour in Los Angeles. The Waymo Tour is a wonderful way to build trust and engage the local community to demonstrate the true power and safety of autonomous vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles are good for society, and they will have tremendous benefits in the communities where they operate. In 2019, SAE hosted a series of Demo Days in Michigan, Florida, and California
to demonstrate to the public the true power of autonomous vehicles. Individuals came from thousands of miles away to ride in an autonomous vehicle. They came to experience the future. They came to ride in an autonomous vehicle. SAE did it right and now Waymo is following SAE’s lead by hosting their own version of Demo Days.
When the public is engaged in the roll-out of autonomous vehicles, they are engaged. They feel part of the process and they want to learn. This is the beauty of engaging with the public instead of just dropping vehicles in their community. You become part of the community and the community becomes your biggest champion because they were able to meet you, ask questions and experience a ride in the autonomous vehicle prior to the launch of commercial operations. Engaging with the community and building trust is one of the best ways to overcome the misconceptions and downright lies that are being spread by special interests.
Let us not forget that autonomous vehicles are the future and at some point in the future, they will be part of every community around the world. While autonomous vehicles create value in the communities that they operate in, autonomous trucks will soon be the backbone of U.S. supply chain. Autonomous trucks have the power to lower inflation. Consumers are suffering under the burdens of high inflation and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin sees a recession in 2024 as consumers are suffering under the impact of inflation on everyday expenses and increased housing costs.
The bottom line is Main Street is not healthy from an economic standpoint. Total household debt rose by 1.3 percent to reach $17.29 trillion in the third quarter of 2023 according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mortgage balances increased to $12.14 trillion. Credit card balances to $1.08 trillion. Student loan balances to $1.6 trillion. Auto loan balances increased to $1.6 trillion, continuing the upward trajectory seen since 2011.
The data is clear, consumers are using debt instruments such as credit cards to put food on their table.
Consumers are suffering in the future when autonomous trucks scale and begin operating in multiple states in fleet sizes that are measured by the tens of thousands, inflation will have a new enemy. Its name - Autonomous Trucking. Autonomous trucks will be able to lower the cost shipping and ensure that household goods are delivered on time and at a cheaper price than their counterparts. Trucking is expense today, because there is a lack of drivers, causing the rates to go up to make up for the shortfall. Hence inflation.
Autonomous trucks will solve the driver shortage problem. Autonomous trucks will lower the cost to ship goods. But this is not what certain special interests want you to believe. They want you to believe that autonomous trucks are BAD. They want you to believe that autonomous trucks are EVIL. They want you to believe that autonomous trucks are RECKLESS. Most importantly they want you to believe that autonomous trucks are NOT SAFE.
News Flash to those special interest groups, these are all LIES. Special interest groups are taking a broadside attack on the autonomous vehicle and truck industries by lumping everyone all together.
Why? To protect their own interests.
The public is seeing right through it and on X, Community Notes are firing back and putting notes on their tweets calling select and certain posts misleading and false. The community is fighting back and pushing back against the lies.
In my opinion to counteract these attacks, the autonomous vehicle and truck industries need to take a unified approach to autonomy, while having their own industry advocacy groups push back in their own lanes. The autonomous vehicle industry should follow Waymo’s lead, partner, and supercharge the outreach to local communities where they plan to operate.
The autonomous trucking industry should explore creating their own industry advocacy group that focuses solely on autonomous trucking. Each use case is different. Autonomous trucks are going to be deployed on highways and operate in industrial areas as supposed to local communities. Then there is the regulatory aspects, autonomous trucks have different regulatory issues as compared to autonomous vehicles. Yet at this point there is no clear path to telling these stories and pushing back on the narrative and lies that are being spread by special interests. The time to stop this nonsense is now, before the special interests drive a wedge between the public and policy makers. This is their goal; they want to drive the wedge to ensure that autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks never truly scale. Why?
Because they want to protect their own interests. They are not interested in innovating or changing the status quo.
Just look at what happened with YELLOW. A certain special interest led to the downfall of YELLOW, a 99-year-old company which was the third-largest carrier in trucking’s less-than-truckload Sector. The failure of YELLOW because of the special interest was the largest ever failure of a trucking company in the United States. This DID NOT have to happen, but YELLOW was forced by the special interest group, because the special interest group would not compromise for the betterment of the company and its employees. YELLOW is currently in the process of selling off their real estate and terminals which in bankruptcy that will raise roughly $2 billion dollars.
Assets can be used to raise cash, yet there was no compromise from the special interest that targeted YELLOW. With that decision, 30,000 jobs, including 22,000 unionized workers were eliminated overnight with no notice. A very sad ending for a 99-year-old company. It’s the same ending that those same special interests would like to see happen to the autonomous trucking and autonomous vehicle industries. Why? Because they are not willing to look forward and embrace the future. Instead, they are trapped in the past and wrapped in fear. A fear so great that they are willing to bankrupt companies and kill jobs just to protect the status quo. We cannot let this happen and we will not let this happen as autonomy is good for the economy.
Autonomous trucks and autonomous vehicles will CREATE new high-paying jobs. Autonomous vehicles will become part of our communities. Autonomous trucks will deliver our goods and Christmas gifts.
All this and more are possible if we just stand up to the special interests and make a wrong a right.
The world is watching. The next move is ours. Question is, who steps up and makes the move?
Let us know who you think will make that move and what the potential outcomes might be by sending an email to podcast@sae.org. That’s podcast@sae.org.
Today is tomorrow. Tomorrow is today. The future is a vibrant and healthy autonomous vehicle and truck industries.
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