The Long Road to Self-Driving Trucks

Trucking is a $700 billion business that shifts 70 percent of all goods in America — so how quickly can it adopt automation?

Dave Mercer has been driving trucks across America since 1986. He has hauled ice cream to Nevada, burgers to Oregon, and trailers to Baltimore.

“It can be a rough life,” he says. “You’re away from your family a lot, and raising your kids from the road is a hard life. I’ve talked to a lot of principals on the phone. But it also provided me a good lifestyle. I drove through all the recessions and depressions and don’t recall ever slowing down.”

Three and a half million miles — and one divorce — down the road, Mercer was ready for a change of pace. In 2015, he joined Peloton Technology, a Californian startup developing self-driving trucks using robotics and artificial intelligence. Mercer helps test that technology on tracks and public roads, preparing for the day when truckers might leave their cabs for good.

“We can’t play stupid to the fact that down the road there’s probably going to be a fully automated truck running up and down the highway,” Mercer says.

Head to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) website and you can read reports of every collision involving…