Elon Musk is so cool, Star Trek: Discovery referenced him recently as one of the greatest innovators in human history, alongside the Wright brothers (real), and the inventor of humanity’s faster-than-light travel (fictional). That’s pretty heady praise.
In that reference, given that he was talking about flight, it probably had a lot more to do with Musk’s SpaceX venture, and his plans to colonize Mars.
But last week, Musk was much more down to earth. He wants to colonize our roadways with robotic semis, electrically powered. Tesla-powered.
Most people were probably thinking about the all-electric drivetrain of the Tesla Semi. It’s different, alright. The driver is positioned in the centre, although there is a jump seat for a passenger. The dashboard isn’t clusters of gauges and switches, but two 15-inch touchscreens. Since there’s no giant diesel engine in front of you, the driver’s visibility is nearly unimpeded. It might even be better than that of 70s-era cab-over design (think the original Optimus Prime), except that the central seating and sloping windows probably provides better views of the right side than a cab-over does.
That visibility is all great, but apparently, soon to be unnecessary. That’s because this semi is designed to drive autonomously.
I didn’t notice any rotating LIDAR (Light detection and ranging, i.e. laser-based radar) on its centre line, so however this truck senses, it must be through optics and radar systems. Right now it’s got automatic lane keeping, automatic emergency braking, and forward collision warning. Since this is a prototype, maybe we’ll see all the ugly sensors appear on a production model.
An innovation that may be coming to autonomous trucks, and quite possibly this one, will be the ability to do “platooning,” where several trucks drive together in convoy. This convoy won’t have the Rubber Duck calling Pig Pen, good buddy, because Pig Pen’s truck will be empty.
Current plans by Pelton Technology, a company working on platooning, involve having a driver in the lead truck. But maybe, some day, they won’t?
I just can’t wait to get behind three semis on a highway, driving so close that they are drafting each other. I can see it now – some jerk in a three-quarter-ton with a lift kit doing a suicide pass around three semis, coming right at me and my family. And when they realize they can’t make the pass, they won’t be able to squeeze in between the semis. Great.
It’ll be even better when that jerk is pulling a trailer.
Will the platooning semis, with a lead driver or no, identify the suicide passer? If so, what will they do? How will they react? Will they slow down and let him pass, or will they open up a gap for him to sneak in? If they do slow down, will humans start to game the system, knowing that passing a platoon of Teslas will make them slow down, allowing you to zip by them? What will that do to other traffic?
Platooning allows multiple trucks to travel together for efficiency’s sake. Fortune magazine says each Tesla Semi will be able to pull a 53-foot trailer.
Well, we already have a similar concept – it’s called a B-train, and they pull two trailers in close proximity together all the time. I’d much rather see more B-trains on the road than killer robots.
I’m not throwing “killer” robots out there glibly, either. Somewhere in their programming, autonomous vehicles must make life-and-death decisions.
As we mere human drivers already know, every decision is life-and-death on the road. Straying across the line? Deadly. Turning left in front of someone? Deadly. Not being able to see well around a blind corner? Potentially deadly. These are all decisions that the programming will have to decide.
There will also be cases where the robotrucks will have to decide whether to hit the school bus or the pedestrian. They might have been just as dead with a human driver, but is it really the same?
Yes, we’ve had robotic autopilots doing most of the flying for airliners for decades. But the fundamental difference is airliners fly in essentially open skies, whereas these trucks are going to be driving down crowded highways and streets.
I, for one, do not welcome our robotic semi overlords, Mr. Musk, no matter how cool Star Trek thinks you are.
