The Good and the Ugly side of Tesla's newest Electric Semi Truck
Elon Musk is a man of ideas and amazing technologies, the South African Business tycoon is a bad ass Engineer, inventor and investor etc. Talk about X.com/confinity forming Paypal, SpaceX,
Neuralink, SolarCity and Tesla Inc.; this man is behind them all!
With a Net-worth of $20.8 Billion as at October 2017 and the 21st Richest in America, but you have to make an initial deposit of $5 grand to get one of the super-semi Electric trucks, a reachargeable heavy duty Truck brand that could cover 60 mph in less than 7 secs from a rest point and could theoretically travel for 500 miles with just one full charge session even when fully laden. A self driving trucks looks very futuristic but let's us all read to the end as i juxtapose the Good and the Ugly sides of this Gig.
The announcement and the lunch of this Semi heavy-duty truck definitely had the greatest impact on the world as much as it would have on the Roads, this half Intelligent machines are powered by a Model 3 motor on each of its four drive wheels and boasts a drag coefficient lower than a Bugatti Chiron, can drive 800 kilometers per charge i.e just a single charge of its lithium-ion battery pack.
THE GOOD
Heavy duty trucks are not so palatable to drive, it is a very rigorous job, exhausting and very lonely.
Not many of this jobs pays well. Think about the very long distance to be covered by road or the long hours of sitting in a position which takes tolls on the body of the driver and makes them numb, this is making truckers/drivers shorter in the Trucking business.
The American Trucking association reports the annual drivers turnover for large truckloads carriers reached a massive 90% this year and predicts a 50,000 driver shortage by early 2018- Wired
Think about the 4,000 and over truck related deaths yearly, or the countless Truck accidents that occurs year-in-year-out. All has a happy ending with Tesla's Automated Electric Trucks; it caters for drivers/truckers shortages and reduces Road accidents by heavy trucks with this Automated vehicles.
THE UGLY
So what happens to the Truckers left when Tesla's Automated Electric Trucks hits the roads in mass?
Nearly 3.2 million people currently employed to drive or work on deliveries-Wired
So what does the future holds for this Drivers(Moms, Dads, girls, boys) and delivery agents when this Trucks and could be automated and remotely controlled to drive themselves to the actual locations/destination of deliveries(Different cities and towns away). It is not clear yet if drivers still has a role to play in this Advanced Trucks systems just like modern flights with Autopilots and Real Pilots.
Today, trucks carry 70% of all goods shipped in the US, about 10.7 Billion Tons this year pulling in a average of $719 Billion in Revenue-Wired
Intelligent trucks that could operates itself would need smaller units of drivers, shedding off more human/manual aspect of Truck driving, it has be predicted that:
All driving industries could loose up to 300,000 jobs a year to automation- Goldman Sachs Economists.
All driving industries could loose up to 300,000 jobs a year to automation- Goldman Sachs Economists.
This will have effects on more advance countries and other States over others, some of the states in the US that would be most likely affected by this technology are Iowa, Indiana, West Virginia etc. But for most developing countries and states, seems like a long future occurrence and they needs not worry about loosing jobs and drop in annual revenue of Trucking Industry.
CONCLUDING
Looking at the Statistics of who loses his or her job and who gains/lose more in annual revenue/profit, it is glaring Elon Musk's innovation stands in limbo between threat to several likelihoods and a more advance world, would it be a global benefits or just a restricted advantages, fame and Glory? Time would tell once this trucks hits the roads in mass!
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Technological advancements is rendering a lot of people jobless and it will continue to be an upward trend, one of the negative effects of technology.
You could say that again and again ma'am
Nice one from Tesla, but i believe that circumstances will always balance itself, as the new tech cannot take over all at once, it would be gradual. I believe drivers will still have ‘behind-the-desk' jobs after all. My only challenge is the durability of the battery as we all know that batteries undergo a decay constant, or get weaker with use. Tesla must deal with it if they will not be pushed out of market... Thanks
Lithium ion Batteries are durable, the components parts is not a major issue at hand but the number of people(Truckers) going out of job for this, cos no one would get an Automated Truck and still retain the Drivers.
@oluwoleolaide, you are very correct on it being durable, my friend bought a lithium battery in China last month. The cost was $800 for a 100AH battery. A 100AH lead-acid battery costs about $140 in Nigeria! The battery has about 2000 cycle life.
The really great thing about lithium batteries is that they provide employment for children in the Congo who are forced to work 12-14 hour days in cobalt mines for fear that their hands or feet will cut off... Boy, where would they be without the environmental movement???
That's really saddening
@richq11, the cobalt mine incident in Congo is a result of poverty and lack of education of the populace. The workers are usually the poor who are exploited by mine owners for more profit just like most unscrupulous capitalist would behave. Their government or Labour or Trade Union should intervene but I guess they must have been bribed by these crooked cobalt mining industries. It is a sad issue of child labor and exploitation but thankfully the whole world is aware and may place an embargo on cobalt from that region like they did for "blood" diamonds.
You sound like someone who is very young and aren't very aware of what's going on. Capitalism isn't the problem. The children are kept in a condition of slavery by their government, not mine owners... and when is the last time you saw children that had a trade union? The workers are poor and uneducated and exploited by their socialist government that was put there by the United Nations. If the children refuse to work they have a hand or foot cut off. The "embargo" on blood diamonds is a farce- they just get sold through shadow companies that are owned by the diamond cartel- who funds military dictatorships. If they put an embargo on cobalt from the Congo, where are you going to get it? They don't have it anywhere else.
@richq11, I do not really have a lot of information on what is going on in Congo, so I cannot really say much about it than what I have read. Since their government is complicit, I think it would be an uphill task to fix the injustice.
This will help you...
https://steemit.com/science/@richq11/the-real-cost-of-electric-cars
@ayobami99 Newer batteries can last longer these days. The technology is improving so is the number of cycles. Tesla batteries eg here https://www.tesla.com/powerwall. The battery is capable of being discharged to a depth of 100%! Try that on a normal lead-acid battery and watch your battery die!
Thanks for the update, i must have been living in the stone age, lol
I think part of the 300k could have a job working in other companies generated by the automated industry. The same happened to NITEL (fixed phone landline) workers in Nigeria when GSM took hold. I remember the clamoring and opposition towards GSM then. My Uncle working as the Head Technical Service Engineer then in NITEL, lost his job, but he was smart enough to undergo some RF training and was absolved by MTN. That was a relief, but many unskilled workers were hugely laid off when NITEL later became MTEL, a project that failed again.
It's a different story with Truck driving buddie, trust me most of this folks had zero education not to talk of been employed by automated Industry. Take Nigeria for example, how many Truck drivers do you think can switch to a Digital work mode(Consoles and Controls)? Except it could be accommodated just like in the Aero sector where Autopilot never pushed Actual pilots out of Work.
@oluwoleolaide, they will lose their jobs no doubt, but they would definitely get another job elsewhere. In the long run, it is a good thing. Change always comes at a cost, many coal engineers lost their job in the advent of diesel engines, but ain't we better off with it now? I know we are.
Where?
@richq11, sorry, I do not understand the question.
You said you're sure the truckers would get jobs... where would they get them?
@richq11 They will definitely adapt, there are other jobs they could still do if they get fired. I am not saying it is going to be easy, but they would adapt with time. I doubt they'd be laid off without severance package/compensation.
Where do you live? How do you know they'll adapt- because you say so. How many truck drivers do you actually know?
If its for the Nigerian truck drivers, i really pity them, uneducated is one trouble another is how the trucks have deformed them. They may be safe for now since the terrain of Nigerian roads may not accommodate the autos for now but who knows, Nigeria may be one of the first patronizer of this product. Something needs to be done. If these truck drivers are laid off, there is a huge problem at hand for the economy and the populace. You know what i mean..
I definitely understand you man, some of them might never recover from that loss.
@oluwoleolaide, but I still believe before this would go very much commercial and accepted by many, many of these truckers would have gotten another job in their skill level.
That's what i call circumstance balancing itself, only that some damages will surely be incurred
@ayobami99, exactly! You got what I have been trying to pass across.
@ayobami99 remember our good roads. Lol
Yes ooo
Hey old friend, I haven't seen you on here in a while... I have an important question- how much weight can one of those things pull? I don't see an electric truck generating enough torque to pull any large amount of weight.
Yes Old friend, How you been Richy? i have been one leg in one leg out- trying to straighten my business.
They look too fanciful to me to do any heavy lifting if you ask me, when it starts plying the roads we see how many of it that breaks down on the road.
They seem impractical to me. For one thing I don't think they can handle any kind of payload. For another, truck driving is very difficult even for an experienced driver- automatically driven trucks is pure lunacy!!! And I'm doing fine, my friend... My book should go to the printer this week.
Oh wow, that is great...i will have more time this week to read more of your works dear Richy
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STOPThis a Nice research and good update @oluwoleolaide
Considering the fact that Technological advancements is one of the causes why some are jobless but it has really help in big time to reduce the health hazard of some. Though this newest Electric Semi Truck is a good idea but the durability of such truck, the area it can cover and the cost of getting one should be put into consideration.
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STOPBeautiful post...well this development would not affect developing countries like Nigeria,we are not that advanced yet.besides we have a good percentage of unemployed youths already .im not sure we are ready to be replaced by trucks.But then we have nothing to worry about as Nigeria won't be seeing any such growth anytime soon