I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a demonstration of semi-autonomous tractor-trailers driving down a road. It was three or four separate rigs, running nose to tail, in an effort to get better fuel mileage. By nose to tail, I mean that literally. They only had a few feet between the tractor and the trailer in front of it. Apparently, they were connected by Wi-Fi.
This was in a perfect world scenario. In the real world, I can see a lot of problems with this scenario. First, I know of no Wi-Fi connection that is fast enough to prevent a major crash if the front tractor had to jam on the brakes. Someone might say, "But they will be in a dedicated traffic lane." But that fact is, real world driving has many scenarios where a tractor has to react, immediately, to a situation in front of it, and only a fly-by-wire system would have the time to react without causing a major smash-up.
Second, if a problem occurs with a tractor behind the front one, or the front tractor, you immediately have a road jam. It's not like there is a driver that can come out of the vehicle to address a problem.
A finally, we are talking about roads that would to be created, or heavily modified. How is that going to be paid for? This country has a huge need for existing infrastructure improvement, and no seemingly way fix it. We currently have a Congress that finds it impossible do what it WANTS to do. Despite the fact that interest rates are at historic lows, there is no desire to use those rates to fix our infrastructure, as it stands now.
I'm not saying trucking automation won't happen. I just believe it is farther down the road than many want to admit.
