Just a smidge ignorant for claiming that any concern any driver here has raised is laughable when you don’t even do the job, no? Nobody here pulled any of those concerns out of thin air, everything I read or wrote in this thread actually happens, but you wouldn’t know that because you’re not a feeder driver. Do you even know what happens when a bump in the road makes an airline pop off? You have 3 seconds before the braking system is out of air and you’re unable to move. The only time it has happened to me was in a single lane construction zone and I came to a complete stop blocking an entire direction of travel. Thankfully my feeder brain had just barely a high enough IQ to exit the truck with a zip tie, put the gladhand back on, build air pressure and continue moving. What do you think traffic would’ve looked like while your truck autonomously fixed that one? I can assure you I wasn’t doing any laughing during that particular moment.
My comment about asking you for financial advice was purely sarcastic, I’m sorry you didn’t pick up on that. Perhaps you and I are more alike than I would care to admit, you see UPS is also not my main source of income. I make more in real estate than I do wearing brown, and I have had a good run on luck on the stock markets since Spring 2020 but I treat that more as just gambling. Invest in what you know, you seem to speculate which is fine if it’s working for you, all the power to you. I’ll stick to what I know, and that’s real estate, and that autonomous trucks have flaws right now. I also have no interest in retiring at 40, especially if I’ll just be riding along in a self driving truck by then.
One last note, I love history. Unfortunately, that’s a terrible photo to prove your point. Society laughed at the horseless carriage because they were financially so far out of reach for the vast majority of people that it was assumed that not enough people would ever be able to afford them and become mainstream. Beyond some safety concerns nobody ever thought that harnessing 20 horsepower on a single platform was ever a bad idea, and the horseless carriage didn’t have any real drawbacks when compared to traditional horse and carriage. I’m sure the drastic difference between the two photos had absolutely nothing to do with Henry Ford introducing affordable automobiles to the masses, or that his pricing decreased annually every year afterwards further making it more obtainable. When the Model T was released in 1908 it cost less than $24k in today’s money, by your 1913 photograph it cost less than $15k in today’s money, and by 1924 it cost less than $5k. By comparison, a basic horse, carriage and harness cost around $4k. You said follow the money, so you can see why the horse went away, people could afford not to buy it. Back to the topic at hand, the technology you’re so convinced on has capability drawbacks unlike the horseless carriage, and it doesn’t even fit the way this company operates. Estimates I’ve read suggest it’s about $25k/truck to outfit the autonomous technology. UPS doesn’t even pay for air horns in our tractors. Surely an air horn is safer and more efficient at grabbing attention then the wimpy electric city horn just like what’s on your car right? They didn’t want to splurge for backup alarms in our road tractors either.
I will admit, UPS will throw money at anything once, however it’s usually driven by grant money and results in an epically underwhelming performance. UPS dove deep into natural gas powered tractors to save fuel costs, meanwhile they’re a dangerously gutless POS on an incline and the fuel tank blocks the drivers view out the back window. UPS lined up to buy the Tesla semi too and even that is going to be hard to integrate into our system. UPS tractors typically work around the clock, most feeder drivers share a tractor and a lot of drivers have to wait for another driver to come back so that they can start their day, the trucks don’t ever get a break. For that reason, the EV tractors just won’t have a chance to spend 30 minutes for that 80% recharge OR they’ll be limited to drivers that don’t share a tractor AND have lower mileage runs to stay within the EV range, which are just not common runs.
When you’re finishing up your preload shift ask your delivery drivers how efficient they feel Orion technology is. UPS spent insane money developing that, and yet most drivers find it cumbersome and they’re able to beat the computer when they know their delivery area.
I’ll say it again, the only place autonomous trucks have within our company in the current state are either in the form of contractors, or a further safety/efficiency aid as a next-level cruise control with a human in the cab.
My comment about asking you for financial advice was purely sarcastic, I’m sorry you didn’t pick up on that. Perhaps you and I are more alike than I would care to admit, you see UPS is also not my main source of income. I make more in real estate than I do wearing brown, and I have had a good run on luck on the stock markets since Spring 2020 but I treat that more as just gambling. Invest in what you know, you seem to speculate which is fine if it’s working for you, all the power to you. I’ll stick to what I know, and that’s real estate, and that autonomous trucks have flaws right now. I also have no interest in retiring at 40, especially if I’ll just be riding along in a self driving truck by then.
One last note, I love history. Unfortunately, that’s a terrible photo to prove your point. Society laughed at the horseless carriage because they were financially so far out of reach for the vast majority of people that it was assumed that not enough people would ever be able to afford them and become mainstream. Beyond some safety concerns nobody ever thought that harnessing 20 horsepower on a single platform was ever a bad idea, and the horseless carriage didn’t have any real drawbacks when compared to traditional horse and carriage. I’m sure the drastic difference between the two photos had absolutely nothing to do with Henry Ford introducing affordable automobiles to the masses, or that his pricing decreased annually every year afterwards further making it more obtainable. When the Model T was released in 1908 it cost less than $24k in today’s money, by your 1913 photograph it cost less than $15k in today’s money, and by 1924 it cost less than $5k. By comparison, a basic horse, carriage and harness cost around $4k. You said follow the money, so you can see why the horse went away, people could afford not to buy it. Back to the topic at hand, the technology you’re so convinced on has capability drawbacks unlike the horseless carriage, and it doesn’t even fit the way this company operates. Estimates I’ve read suggest it’s about $25k/truck to outfit the autonomous technology. UPS doesn’t even pay for air horns in our tractors. Surely an air horn is safer and more efficient at grabbing attention then the wimpy electric city horn just like what’s on your car right? They didn’t want to splurge for backup alarms in our road tractors either.
I will admit, UPS will throw money at anything once, however it’s usually driven by grant money and results in an epically underwhelming performance. UPS dove deep into natural gas powered tractors to save fuel costs, meanwhile they’re a dangerously gutless POS on an incline and the fuel tank blocks the drivers view out the back window. UPS lined up to buy the Tesla semi too and even that is going to be hard to integrate into our system. UPS tractors typically work around the clock, most feeder drivers share a tractor and a lot of drivers have to wait for another driver to come back so that they can start their day, the trucks don’t ever get a break. For that reason, the EV tractors just won’t have a chance to spend 30 minutes for that 80% recharge OR they’ll be limited to drivers that don’t share a tractor AND have lower mileage runs to stay within the EV range, which are just not common runs.
When you’re finishing up your preload shift ask your delivery drivers how efficient they feel Orion technology is. UPS spent insane money developing that, and yet most drivers find it cumbersome and they’re able to beat the computer when they know their delivery area.
I’ll say it again, the only place autonomous trucks have within our company in the current state are either in the form of contractors, or a further safety/efficiency aid as a next-level cruise control with a human in the cab.
