No Drivers Are Needed

By Dave Trecker

Things are moving at warp speed these days and often without drivers. At least drivers we can see.

After a decade of false promises and misstarts, autonomous vehicles are now starting to carry passengers. The robotaxi industry is taking off across the U.S.

No one should be terribly surprised. Elon Musk has been saying for years that driverless vehicles will transform society, particularly when coupled with artificial intelligence. At a recent conference, Musk told attendees, “Within 10 years, it will be a rare thing to be driving your own car. The car will be driving you.”

Musk knows what he’s talking about. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Tesla now has nearly 800 robocars plying the roads in Texas and California. Others are awaiting approval, including many in Florida.

And that’s child’s play compared to Alphabet’s Waymo, with some 3,000 robotaxis operating in six states and more ready to hit the road in 12 others. The company says it now provides over half a million trips a week in 11 cities.

Uber, the largest rideshare company, just partnered with Amazon and its box-shaped Zoox for a launch in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in mid-2027.

Overall, the number of autonomous rides is expected to reach 36 million this year and exceed 700 million by 2030, according to Morgan Stanley.

And that’s just in the U.S. It’s also going international. For example, Uber plans to offer robotaxis in Munich next year.

The launches haven’t all been a walk in the park. Reuters reported an incident in Dallas where a robotaxi failed to make a left turn four times, in each case making right turns to double back around the block. A remote attendant finally got it straightened out.

Then there was a pick-up at the wrong airport. And in a separate instance a drop-off at a freeway exit on the wrong side of town. Wait times often exceeded 30 minutes. No question, the learning curve has been steep.

But things are better now – streamlined even.

And big events showcase the promise. For example, Amazon’s Zoox strutted its stuff at the World Cup, with 104 matches spread out over 11 North American cities ending in mid-July. The box shaped robotaxi took fans from hotels to pitches and back to hotels. Lots of activity in Las Vegas where there was plenty of gambling to go with the futbol. WSJ accounts gave the driverless cars passing grades, but not all A’s.

What about other autonomous uses? There are plenty of them. And things are certainly simpler when there are no passengers involved.

U.S. Sugar recently announced it was deploying a fleet of driverless John Deere tractors in south Florida. According to the announcement, the tractors can plough the sugar fields essentially non-stop. How sweet is that?

Fitted with vehicle automation technology, the tractors are said to deliver higher crop production than those with human drivers. Some 250,000 acres of sugarcane are in play.

What about job loss? The press release said something about “having to hire new employees for the knowledge-based skills this technology requires.” But there aren’t too many dedicated tractor drivers out there, so job loss isn’t much of an issue.

In fact, the technology could be the start of a new trend in farming. U.S. Sugar is said to be considering autonomous corn cultivation. Soybeans could be next.

Then there is cargo delivery.

Driverless trucks have been shuttling goods up and down a limited number of highways for many years. But now it’s gone well beyond that. In Arizona, PepsiCo uses a fleet of autonomous trucks to transfer Gatorade from a bottling plant and Cheetos and Doritos from a warehouse to numerous supermarket outlets. Imagine the untapped market for that kind of cargo delivery.

Auto parts to assembly plants, ammunition to military depots, sorted plastic waste to recycle facilities. The list is endless and the potential is staggering.

And all of it driverless.

Dr. Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Naples.