Those were not real numbers and were based on set of assumptions that did not hold true, including but not limited to the core assumption — Starsky was not able to reach an AI drive autonomy level needed. They also assumed margins would not be razor thin if two or more logistics companies succeed in creating autonomous trucks; governments would not allow this, it’s a pipe dream.
> Starsky was not able to reach an AI drive autonomy level needed.
The numbers were for fully manual remote driving. This thread is all about asking why they closed down instead of going in the fully manual remote option.
The article makes it look like the manual remote driving was perfectly viable already. Although there are obvious connectivity problems for scaling it over huge distances.
> They also assumed margins would not be razor thin if two or more logistics companies succeed in creating autonomous trucks
Any midsized investor would expect to reap the high margins during the transition, and deal with (maybe sell) a fully established very large and lucrative logistics company afterwards. A smaller investor would expect to sell it as a service to all logistics companies, and reap a share of that 3x ROI with much smaller investment during the transition, and then probably sell the company for relatively cheap.
Not able to find any proof Starsky was successful in legally and remotely operating trucks at speed at any distance on public roads without special constraints that would not representative of normal daily driving conditions.
For example, this test was on a public road, but it was closed to the public during the test:
