The American economy depends on truckers. Their big rigs ferry food, fuel and countless other goods around the country. But it's also a dangerous and exhausting job, simultaneously stressful and monotonous.
"I say it's the last honest job," says Aaron Isaacs, a truck driver in California. "Because you come out here and you earn your money."
Technology is promising to transform this industry. New driver-assistance features are meant to make the job safer and less demanding. But some companies are taking technology a step farther, and piloting fully autonomous trucks that replace drivers altogether.
So drivers like Isaacs want to know: Will technology make their jobs easier, or take them away?
A big rig that's all about the driver
This fall, Volvo Trucks invited journalists to a closed track in South Carolina to test out their redesigned Volvo VNL, a long-haul truck. As NPR's car reporter, I've test-driven cars and pickups — but never an 18-wheeler. I wasn't sure what to expect when I climbed way, way up behind the wheel.
The bouncing of the air suspension seat took a little getting used to. So did the slight sway of the cab as it pulled 72,000 pounds of cargo into motion. But actually driving the thing was a breeze.
Thanks to camera systems, I didn't have blind spots to worry about. Cruise control managed the truck's speed automatically, so I didn't have to think about the heavy weight behind me. In some cases, I didn't even have to brake. In one demonstration, a car pulled out in front of me and abruptly slowed down. The truck slowed to match it. In simulated stop-and-go traffic, it kept pace with no prompting from me.
"I would say that this truck's easier to drive than most cars nowadays," said Joel Morrow, the president of Alpha Drivers Transportation, who had been invited there by Volvo Trucks. He's the enthusiastic owner of a bright purple Volvo VNL, and he says all these features make it less stressful to drive.
Car drivers have had these features for years. Ever-evolving technologies like adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist are a big part of how companies tempt us into buying new vehicles. But in the large truck market, where vehicles are business investments, these upgrades were slower to arrive. Early versions also tended to annoy drivers with unnecessary beeping and false alarms.
Companies like Volvo Trucks argue that making these tools work — and making them pleasant for drivers — serves the bottom line for freight carriers, just as much as keeping maintenance or fuel costs down. That's because it could help them keep drivers.
Driver turnover in the long-haul trucking industry is shockingly high — averaging above 90% for the big fleets for more than two decades, according to a report commissioned by Congress that analyzed data from the American Trucking Associations, or ATA.
The ATA, which represents carriers, has long argued that drivers keep job-hopping because there's a shortage of them. Drivers say that low wages and bad schedules drive the churn. Plus, the job can be frustrating: There are never enough overnight parking spots for truckers who need to sleep, or businesses that will let them use the bathroom.
Obviously, software and sensors can't solve those problems — and drivers' organizations warn that technology is no substitute for training and experience. But Magnus Koeck, vice president of strategy and marketing for Volvo Trucks, says technology and design can make a difference. If his company takes good care of the driver, he says, not just with fancy cameras and sensors but better visibility, easier-to-see displays, and a more comfortable seat and bed, "we truly believe that our customers can attract the drivers and they [will] want to stay longer." Replacing a driver can cost at least $10,000, between lost work and recruiting and training a new worker, he says. That's real money. Human comfort is valuable.
And to demonstrate that comfort, Volvo Trucks invited journalists to spend a night in a truck. Each one has the functionality and the aesthetic of a nice RV: A table and chairs that convert to a fold-down bed; a compact TV, fridge, microwave; tucked-in storage nooks. I slept great. But I also wondered: Will the truck of the future even need creature comforts?
The week after my test drive, in a parking lot near a Volvo Group office, the company gave me a peek at a nearly-identical Volvo VNL. But a few things were missing. No microwave, and no TV. The back of the cab was just a big empty space.
This was a driverless truck. It didn't need a bed. All it needed was a computer.
Big trucks designed for no driver at all
Aurora Innovation is working on taking the driver out of the big rig entirely. The company has designed a system that uses cameras and other sensors, along with an onboard computer running software to interpret that data, to drive trucks without human input. They are working with truckmakers like PACCAR (which makes Peterbilt and Kenmore trucks) and Volvo Autonomous Solutions (a sister company to Volvo Trucks) to build the system into vehicles.
Other start-ups, like Waabi and Kodiak, are also vying to make driverless freight a reality. Texas, which has lots of long highway stretches and friendly regulations, is a hotspot for their tests.
So I flew to Dallas, and headed to Aurora's terminal for a ride in a self-driving Peterbilt truck.
At first glance, this gravel lot doesn't seem like a high-tech, futuristic operation. But if you look closely, the big rigs have little protrusions at top, vaguely like ears or stubby horns, that are packed with cameras, radar and lidar, laser-based sensors.
I climbed into the cab of a truck that was waiting for the go signal. A.J. Jenkins, a longtime truck driver, was in the front seat. But he wasn't there to drive — his role was "observer."
The truck gave a beep, and started to roll. We pulled out of the lot onto a frontage road, waited at a stop sign, crossed an overpass and then merged onto the highway, headed south toward Houston. Within minutes, we were cruising slightly under the speed limit along with mid-morning traffic.
Jenkins kept his hands loosely in his lap — or at one point, tucked casually behind his head. At first, it was a little unsettling — especially when the truck had to navigate a who-will-go-first dance with another driver. I've ridden in cars with some self-driving features before, but those have screens that show you what the vehicle is planning to do. This cab had none. The goal is to have no one in the cab, so … no people, no screens.
But I got used to it, and as we drove, Jenkins gave me his best guess about what the truck was responding to. For example, when we slowed down at one point, it was to give a car the opportunity to merge in front of us.
"We try to be the most courteous truck on the road," Jenkins said.
Jenkins used to be a driving instructor, teaching people who wanted a commercial license. In a way, he helped teach this truck to drive, too. In the early days of Aurora, he would train the autonomous system by driving a truck like this, while all of its sensors observed the road and what he was doing. "They took the logs of me driving, and other drivers as well," he said.
The data from all those test drives was used to create the software for the system the company calls the Aurora Driver.
Then, to improve the system, Jenkins would go out on the road with another Aurora employee. He would watch closely while the truck drove, hands hovering over the steering wheel, ready to intervene whenever the truck needed correction. The Aurora employee in the right seat would monitor exactly what the truck was sensing. The two of them would make sure the truck was detecting and responding to everything correctly.
Jenkins says he was always comfortable riding in autonomous mode, but that in early days, the truck would weave back and forth inside the lane. "It was a little embarrassing," Jenkins said, because he'd wonder if other drivers thought he was a rookie.But he vividly remembers the system update that changed that. "We stayed right in the middle of the lane," he says. "It was awesome." In fact, he said, giving it even higher praise, "It was boring."
That was four years ago. Today, with observers in the cab, Aurora is moving actual cargo, including flooring, drinks and packages, on actual freeways; more than 100,000 miles worth of autonomous trips, with no human interventions and a perfect safety record, the company says.
They're planning to run entirely human-free cargo loads in the spring of 2026.
Surveys from AAA and highway safety groups have found that a majority of Americans express concern or outright fear about driverless vehicles.
So do many truck drivers. "Computers don't work all the time. You know, there is no technology that is 100% proven to work all of the time, every single day," said Isaacs, the California truck driver and a member of the Teamsters union.
And he thinks that as a human driver, he's better at noticing what other human drivers are doing, and reacting accordingly — say, giving extra space to the guy playing Angry Birds on his phone while he steers.
"That's a big part of the job, is anticipating the actions of others," he says. "And I don't believe that a computer can do that."
Advocates for self-driving vehicles tend to take the opposite view, arguing that autonomous vehicles will be — or at least, could be — safer than notably error-prone humans. Computers don't get distracted or have a bad day. And human eyes only point in one direction at a time, while cameras can get a 360-degree view.
Aurora president Ossa Fisher says that autonomous tech has "superhuman capabilities, responding to the world much faster and [more] consistently than a human ever could."
Fisher also says that Aurora has extensively tested failure scenarios — both on the road and in computer simulations — to make sure that there are backup systems should a component fail, and that the trucks respond safely if even the backups go down. "We've tested everything possible going wrong with the truck or the surrounding area," Fisher says.
Critics are not convinced by assurances like these.
"The uncomfortable position that we're in right now is that basically we are generally expected to take the words of the proponents of the technology that this stuff works," said Todd Spencer, the president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents truck drivers. Spencer said his organization is also "somewhat terrified" about potential misuses of the technology, like the risk that the trucks could be hacked — perhaps even driven into crowds, something terrorists have done with ordinary trucks.
Fisher says Aurora has guarded against hacking, in part by ensuring that only the truck's onboard computer can decide where it goes. "We have a zero-trust security system where you cannot operate the truck remotely even if you wanted to," she says. That is, even Aurora employees can't steer the truck from a distance, which means nobody else could, either.
What does the future of trucking look like?
Truck drivers are deeply concerned about what all of this could mean for their jobs. "When you start taking drivers out of trucks, you're taking food off of people's tables," Isaacs said. "You're taking the braces out of that kid's mouth."
Not so, Fisher says. She points to that data from the American Trucking Associations showing the high rate of driver turnover, and argues that autonomy will fill a gap instead of taking jobs away. "If you are a truck driver today," she says, "your services will be in demand until the day you choose to retire."
But what about the truckers' argument that turnover is driven by poor working conditions, not a driver shortage? Fisher argues that autonomy could "solve" the least pleasant jobs. Her company is focused on very long trips — where the driving is the simplest, and it's an advantage to have a driver that never sleeps.
"Short-haul trucking is not something that we're going after in the near term," she says. "So we're taking the most difficult, the least desirable —- depending on how you look at it — jobs and filling that role with very safe, autonomous technology."
Desirability does, indeed, depend on how you look at it. Some drivers strongly prefer to stay close to home. But Mike Bradshaw, a Teamsters member based in Texas, hauls car trucks — the 18-wheelers that carry eight to 10 smaller vehicles behind them. He sometimes runs them thousands of miles, with union pay and protected rest time. "It's profitable for me to take those longer runs," he says. "That's what I look for."
Fisher says the company's current focus on long routes is a business decision, not one driven by any technological limitations. But as for the long term? "I think we'll automate most things," she said. "I won't put years to it, but certainly in the arc of civilization, vehicles like this will be fully autonomous and we'll thank our lucky stars that they are."
And autonomy will create new jobs, Fisher argues, meaning the profession would evolve rather than fade away. Fewer drivers, perhaps, but more people working to remotely monitor the vehicles and more mechanics testing them before each run.
Brent Taylor, the southern region vice president for the Teamsters, is taking that prospect seriously. "Technology is coming," he says. "It's coming fast."
The Teamsters have successfully negotiated some contracts that require a human in the cab of any autonomous truck. Less successfully, the union has pushed for legislation to require human operators.
And Taylor says they want to make sure that if trucking jobs are transformed by autonomy — with fewer drivers and more mechanics, for instance — those "continue to be good-paying jobs."
"I don't think we're sitting around with our head in the sand thinking that it's never going to happen," he says. "Whether it's five years, 50 years, 100 years, I mean, it's coming."
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