Consultants from Roland Berger study why the maturation of autonomous truck tech would not essentially imply the market is ready for it
Autonomous vans have gone by way of a classical hype cycle. After some bullish bulletins early on and inflated expectations concerning the timing, gamers have modified their view on what is possible within the mid-term. Slower-than-expected expertise progress and questions of safety have additional pushed again these timelines. Now, it feels the fog is clearing and the roadmap, a minimum of for the approaching years, feels extra steady.
The following milestone: ‘driver out’
Autonomous truck gamers have come a great distance in coaching their programs on more and more complicated driving eventualities. Simply 5 years again, autonomous drivers had been able to performing solely easy capabilities comparable to sustaining lane place and performing lane modifications; programs have since been developed to deal with sudden cut-ins, merges, night time driving, additional ranges of inclement climate, and even building websites. Many autonomous truck gamers are near implementing the total set of capabilities that an autonomous driver requires or are presently fixing the final remaining challenges, comparable to pulling over to the street shoulder or inspections.
From a complete addressable market perspective, about 40% of all on-road freight visitors may very well be dealt with by autonomous vans
The main target for many gamers is now shifting from increasing the potential set and the working design area of the car to validating and enhancing their programs. Gamers will use 2023 to show the security capabilities of their expertise. Security incidents, like these seen in 2022, could influence this total supply timeline, but when issues run easily, driver out operations might be anticipated in 2024.
Whereas the flexibility to deal with edge circumstances is vital for driver out operation, having a protected motion as fallback, the place the car involves a managed cease in a protected location, is equally vital. Within the early section of adoption, we’ll see autonomous vans sitting in a protected mode on the street shoulder whereas a distant operator in an on-ground help crew takes over. Whereas this can be possible if the numbers of autonomous vans in operation are small, the help wanted, and thus the working price, should come down finally. Driver-out autonomous vans won’t be instantly price aggressive with standard vans, even after accounting for the price of human help. This proves that the driving force out milestone is essential, however theoretical. It determines the place to begin of the market adoption curve, however the pace of adoption can be decided by each technological developments and shopper behaviour.
Business adoption nonetheless distant
Parallel to expertise growth, autonomous truck gamers are engaged on commercialising their autonomous drivers. To speed up market adoption, a number of gamers have chosen a enterprise mannequin the place they act as carriers hauling freight for patrons with their very own fleet of autonomous vans. The variety of masses dealt with remains to be very low right this moment however will develop as extra clients signal on and routes are expanded. Within the mid-term, autonomous truck gamers will even make their expertise out there to conventional truck carriers, probably by way of a pay-per-use subscription mannequin.
As soon as the expertise is commercially out there, a big market potential might be tapped. From a complete addressable market perspective, about 40% of all on-road freight visitors may very well be dealt with by autonomous vans. That is the share of freight visitors that, right this moment, is dealt with by mixture vans and travels a distance of a minimum of 200 miles. Shorter routes will, a minimum of initially, not be economical whereas vans nonetheless function in a switch hub mannequin with pricey first and final mile drays.
Adoption won’t occur in a single day
A number of near- and mid-term constraints will decide the pace of market adoption. Whereas driver out operation is feasible from a regulatory perspective in most US states, together with Texas the place freight volumes are concentrated, some states, particularly California, particularly prohibit autonomous trucking, limiting short-term adoption potential. Additionally, as OEMs and expertise gamers don’t all function on the identical timeline, completely different ranges of OEM readiness will end in staggered market entry, limiting car provide.
If issues run easily, driver out operations might be anticipated in 2024
In direction of the tip of the last decade, market adoption can be decided extra by the operational readiness of fleets and their threat profile. Generally, tuck carriers are sluggish to undertake new applied sciences. This has been the case prior to now with each telematics and lower-level superior driver help programs, and can probably be the case with autonomous expertise. Unionised fleets will face further resistance. As well as, fleets want to vary their working mannequin and combine drayage runs into their operations to help the switch hub mannequin of autonomous trucking. Whereas gamers will deal with high-density routes originally, such because the Texas Triangle, routes with decrease freight density will finally should be unlocked. To function on these routes with the identical ROI that gamers are used to from excessive density routes, expertise prices should proceed to say no. Lastly, service consolidation is required to drive market adoption past the business’s massive fleets and gamers.
Reaching full market penetration requires ‘unlocking’ many capillary routes, and finally expertise that’s able to dealing with dock-to-dock operations. Accounting for 1 / 4 of the freight visitors by the mid-2030s would nonetheless imply speedy adoption, particularly when in comparison with different equally disruptive automotive improvements comparable to electrical powertrains. It took virtually three many years between the discharge of the primary purpose-built electrical vehicles within the mid-Nineties and right this moment’s full-scale manufacturing.
Walter Rentzsch is a Director at Roland Berger; Wilfried Aulbur is Senior Associate at Roland Berger
