I think if Tesla can pull this off, they will be in a great position. Self Driving cars are years away (I think), but I think self driving trucks are not.
I've driven down highways and passed massive distribution facilities that are just off the highway. It's a lot less complicated to have a truck drive along a highway, stop at a charger, and continue on to a distribution center. Low risk, boring, driving. If Tesla can role out a truck where they can say "It will cost $3,000 to move this trailer from our interchange facility (or the customers warehouse) here in North Carolina to our interchange facility here in Nevada in 24 hours" that's big.
I don't think you will be able to replace human drivers at every step (at the moment), but if Tesla can replace the long haul drivers- that's big. When the Electric Car market hits an inflection point, Tesla is going to be playing catch up but if they can get into trucking before anyone else does, and with a solid long haul self driving truck, we're going to see a lot of chance.
Autonomy in trucking is going to be _much_ easier because it will initially be performed in convoys: one human driver up front and several autonomous trucks following. So you can easily get 80% of the cost benefit in a much safer situation.
"Tesla Semi made it 'across the country alone'" in the title does imply that it was self driving though the article clarifies that in this case 'across the country alone' actually means with only battery power and connections to SuperChargers.
None of this refutes poster's point of the greater value and likely simpler use case for automated trucking versus the consumer transportation market. It just makes them not relevant to this particular article.
In the embedded tweet [1], Musk clarifies that "alone" means "no escort or any accompanying vehicles". Which seems like a pretty unimpressive feat to me.
Seems OP thought 'made it alone' means without driver - self driven while it's actually without conventional fuel but just battery power alone. But OP's point is what Otto set out to solve, I guess and now Anthony is starting a church
I've driven down highways and passed massive distribution facilities that are just off the highway. It's a lot less complicated to have a truck drive along a highway, stop at a charger, and continue on to a distribution center. Low risk, boring, driving. If Tesla can role out a truck where they can say "It will cost $3,000 to move this trailer from our interchange facility (or the customers warehouse) here in North Carolina to our interchange facility here in Nevada in 24 hours" that's big.
I don't think you will be able to replace human drivers at every step (at the moment), but if Tesla can replace the long haul drivers- that's big. When the Electric Car market hits an inflection point, Tesla is going to be playing catch up but if they can get into trucking before anyone else does, and with a solid long haul self driving truck, we're going to see a lot of chance.