A look at the safety and economics of autonomous trucks as Aurora and TuSimple say they plan to have commercial-trucking services in the US by the end of 2023
Autonomous trucks that mostly stick to highways could make sense, both technologically and economically, in ways robotaxis have not. Tweets: @herbgreenberg , @hyperplanes , @mims , @alexoimas , @mims , @sub8u , @paulpage , and @aarmlovi Tweets: Herb Greenberg / @herbgreenberg : 1/ This is a really good story by @mims in the WSJ on the future of autonomous trucking. https://www.wsj.com/... To me the attached few paragraphs zero in on two important points... https://twitter.com/... Matthew Martin / @hyperplanes : color me skeptical that they're going to be here in 2023. Although interstates seem like an easier AV problem they're not. Some of our worst most confusing road work is interstates https://twitter.com/... Christopher Mims / @mims : That's 500,000 long haul trucker jobs at risk. But a totally new way to move freight on offer. As one expert put it: https://www.wsj.com/... /fin https://twitter.com/... Alex Imas / @alexoimas : The thing that's always stuck with me from the movie Logan: in not-so-distant future all trucks were autonomous but none of the cars were. https://twitter.com/... Christopher Mims / @mims : Autonomous trucks, unlike robotaxis, are going to be here soon. Some say by the end of 2023. This is a big deal, and I went deep on their tech, safety and economics in this week's weekend @WSJ Thread: https://www.wsj.com/... @sub8u : America, among other countries, has a huge shortage of long-haul truck drivers. And while we've been waiting for full autonomous driving in consumer auto, it might be coming sooner to self-driving big trucks. Good read from @mims https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... Paul Page / @paulpage : Are drivers ready to share the road with robots? Autonomous trucks may be coming to U.S. highways sooner than you think. https://www.wsj.com/... @aarmlovi : The thing about vaporware tech is that sometimes after the hype cools down it starts to condense into puddles of niche usable LiquidWare https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This WSJ analysis lands mid-arc for a sector that had been building toward exactly this moment: Starsky Robotics was already hiring truckers to train and remotely control semi-autonomous rigs back in 2017 (Starsky's remote-control model), and by 2019 TuSimple claimed a proprietary vision system seeing a kilometer ahead at a $1.1B valuation (TuSimple's kilometer-ahead vision system). The article's thesis — that highway-bounded trucks could clear the technological and economic bar that robotaxis keep missing — is what Aurora and TuSimple are betting their 2023 commercial-service deadlines on.
What makes the piece worth revisiting is how the timeline actually played out in the related coverage: two years later the industry's challenge was still a lack of federal regulation even as Aurora and Kodiak planned a major Texas expansion (the industry's regulatory gap ahead of the Texas expansion), and by 2025 Aurora had logged over 1,000 driverless miles on I-45 while targeting just 20+ trucks (Aurora's 1,000+ driverless miles on I-45). The 2023 deadline slipped into a slower, Texas-centered ramp.
First-order effects
- Aurora and TuSimple commit to launching paid US freight services by end of 2023, putting shippers along interstate corridors in line as first customers and making highway-only operations the near-term product.
- Long-haul drivers face direct exposure: reporting tied to this coverage puts roughly 500,000 long-haul trucking jobs at risk if autonomous highway trucking scales.
Second-order effects
- Rivals are pulled onto the same geography: Kodiak's planned major Texas expansion alongside Aurora shows the launch corridor becoming the competitive battleground, concentrating deployments where state policy permits rather than where demand alone would dictate.
- TuSimple's early bet on long-range vision systems becomes table stakes — the technology narrative shifts from whether trucks can see far enough to whether anyone can operate without a federal regulatory framework.
Third-order effects
- With no federal regulation in place even two years after these announcements, states like Texas become the de facto arbiters of where autonomy deploys — fragmenting a national freight market into state-by-state corridors.
- If the pattern holds, the industry consolidates around a few operators running dense regional networks before going national, and the labor question shifts from job loss to which driving segments (long-haul highway vs. local drayage) absorb displaced workers.
The trend: Highway-bounded autonomous trucking is commercializing years behind its announced timelines, with state-level deployment authority — not the technology — setting the pace.