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Welcome back to Current Climate. Self-driving truck developers have positioned the technology as a solution for the growing shortage of human big-rig drivers that’s a problem for the U.S. logistics industry, raising costs to move goods, especially on long-haul routes. But with the spike in diesel fuel prices created by the Iran war, autonomous technology has another big benefit: reduced fuel consumption.

“It's not anecdotal. We are actually seeing this in our fleet today. It’s something like a 14%, 15% reduction in fuel consumption comparing when our trucks are operating autonomously versus when our very skilled operators are driving them,” said Chris Urmson, CEO and cofounder of Aurora, the largest public robot truck company. “At diesel prices today, that's [saving] somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 cents a mile. So for companies that are as focused as our customers are on cost of ownership and delivering value for customers, it's a big deal.”

The improvement comes from the fact that when operating autonomously, semis typically don’t accelerate as quickly or brake as hard as when driven by humans. Long-range vision systems using laser lidar sensors also allow the system to gauge traffic conditions and speed, such as by detecting upcoming slowdowns.

“The other is that when our trucks are operating, they operate at 65 miles per hour,” Urmson said. “They can go faster if they move into a passing lane to move past something that is slow on the road, but the fact that they drive at 65 miles per hour pretty consistently is a huge fuel economy win relative to driving at 75 miles per hour.”

Under U.S. law human drivers can only be behind the wheel for a maximum of 10 hours a day, a rule that doesn’t apply to robots, which also don’t need to stop for bathroom........

© Forbes