Should we UPS drivers fear driverless technology?

Wally

BrownCafe Innovator & King of Puns
Almost all of the gasoline sold in my state has 10 to 15% ethanol and we are striving to be self sufficient in electricity with wind turbines. Renewable energy is the wave of the future and the present.
Good luck. You will need a mess of coal plants or nuke if you want to power all that needed watts. Ethanol uses a tremendous amount of energy in its production as well. You save more fuel by just burning pure gasoline.
 
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oldngray

nowhere special
Good luck. Youwill need a mess of coal plants ot nuke of you want to power all that needed watts. Ethanol uses a tremendous amount of energy in its production as well. You save more fuel by just burning pure gasoline.
Ethanol added to gas is a scam to reward special interest groups. Might make sense if gas prices were higher but currently it is just pork barrel.
 

wilberforce15

Well-Known Member
Good luck. You will need a mess of coal plants or nuke if you want to power all that needed watts. Ethanol uses a tremendous amount of energy in its production as well. You save more fuel by just burning pure gasoline.
The long run solution is simple. Distributed power generation. Every structure will be a power plant. Microgrids with megabattery storage like Tesla's megapack. Controlling software for grid management.

Large scale outages and vulnerabilities would be impossible.

The future involves very few power plants at all. Let alone new ones. This will gradually roll out over decades, and nothing will look the same in 2 or 3.
 

Wally

BrownCafe Innovator & King of Puns
The long run solution is simple. Distributed power generation. Every structure will be a power plant. Microgrids with megabattery storage like Tesla's megapack. Controlling software for grid management.

Large scale outages and vulnerabilities would be impossible.

The future involves very few power plants at all. Let alone new ones. This will gradually roll out over decades, and nothing will look the same in 2 or 3.
Ok, fix California first. Not with our money. Get back to us
 

wilberforce15

Well-Known Member
Ok, fix California first. Not with our money. Get back to us
California is a perfect place for the solution. Solar is great and exploding there. Batteries and microgrids would be absolutely perfect.

Australia was in a worse situation than California.

Elon Musk solved it completely in months. It saves them boatloads of money, and the grid is 100% reliable now.

And he fixed their catastrophe in 100 days and saved them money.

This isn't science fiction.

 

wilberforce15

Well-Known Member
Cleanspark ran the microgrid for the Beirut Embassy, with local generation, storage, and software management.

Months later, the nearly atomic blast in Beirut didn't even cause a power blip. They're entirely self-sufficient.

And this is feasible and economical down to a residential level relatively soon. Stuff like this will still take a decade or two to roll out and take root in a dominating fashion. But it will.

Disclaimer: I'm paid six-figures by the returns on Cleanspark stock. So I'm a big fan.

Note this article was a few months before the blast.

 

Zowert

Well-Known Member
Even if UPS rolls out a fleet of self driving vehicles they’re still going to need service providers (us) to physically deliver the volume. Perhaps it could make our job easier. You wouldn’t have to worry about driving, you could kick back in the cab between stops. Run & gunners could stand in the cargo and sort while the pkg car drives itself.

Unless they make robots capable of loading, unloading, sorting and delivering our jobs are safe.
 
Good luck. You will need a mess of coal plants or nuke if you want to power all that needed watts. Ethanol uses a tremendous amount of energy in its production as well. You save more fuel by just burning pure gasoline.
Shutting down another coal fired plant in my state. Ethanol is more about farm income and rural jobs.
 

I have been lurking

Tired hubrat
Even if UPS rolls out a fleet of self driving vehicles they’re still going to need service providers (us) to physically deliver the volume. Perhaps it could make our job easier. You wouldn’t have to worry about driving, you could kick back in the cab between stops. Run & gunners could stand in the cargo and sort while the pkg car drives itself.

Unless they make robots capable of loading, unloading, sorting and delivering our jobs are safe.
You'll be at hubrat pay though
 

wilberforce15

Well-Known Member
Driverless * is a *ing dumb elitist-* pipe dream
A driverless car can navigate city streets, one ways, highways, and dirt roads right now and do it safer than you.

Edge cases and weird events, plus parking lots, are all that remain. It's not a question. This exists and is already better than you.

If I wanted to summon my car from 30 minutes away I could do it right now, if they simply enabled the feature. I drive to work without touching the wheel until the parking lot. Country roads. Highways. Stoplights. And a roundabout.

It will still take 8 or 10 years for it to migrate to UPS.
 

1jzaupra

Member
A driverless car can navigate city streets, one ways, highways, and dirt roads right now and do it safer than you.

Edge cases and weird events, plus parking lots, are all that remain. It's not a question. This exists and is already better than you.

If I wanted to summon my car from 30 minutes away I could do it right now, if they simply enabled the feature. I drive to work without touching the wheel until the parking lot. Country roads. Highways. Stoplights. And a roundabout.

It will still take 8 or 10 years for it to migrate to UPS.
For this do you see the union fighting this extremely hard?
 

wilberforce15

Well-Known Member
For this do you see the union fighting this extremely hard?
Yes, but ultimately they will lose. The savings for UPS are too good.

And at some point, self driving will be so safe it will be considered nearly criminal to allow a human to drive a car. 30,000 dead each year right now. I expect in a decade or two it will be way under 1,000. Eventually under 100.

Insurance companies may not even let UPS have drivers. They can refuse to insure one.
 
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