THE RACE FOR THE 18-WHEEL BIG-ASS BATTERY POWERED RADAR GUIDED LONG HAUL MIDDLE MILE FUTURISTIC SOLUTION TO FEWER FATALITIES AUTONOMOUS DELIVERY BETTER SUPPLY CHAIN HAPPIER CUSTOMERS AND GLORIOUS PROFITS FOR ALL ...

WHILE ALSO (NO JOKE) SAVING THE PLANETWITH ROBOTS! ...

- Bill Saporito

IF you want to see the current state of trucking, there’s no better place than Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania—a black ribbon of commerce that extends from the Delaware Water Gap across the forested Pocono Mountains through the formidable Allegheny Basin. The highway is generally thick with trucks, often riding two wide, to the annoyance of the passenger cars trying to pass.

The rest stops are crammed with tractor-trailers bearing license plates from across the country, because regulations allow drivers only 11 hours behind the wheel in a 14-hour workday, and they need downtime. At the truck stops, the rigs are filled with diesel while drivers catch a shower or grab some food, phones to their ears as they forage for the next load to deliver. Some of the trailers are riding high, because they’re empty—nearly one third of them, by some estimates. And all these trucks—the pickups, the box trucks, the Class 8, 53-foot, 80,000-pound 18-wheelers—will spew emissions, the price we pay to get the stuff we want.

Along the stretch where I-80 intersects I-81, the roadside is littered with shredded tires—truck turds—the occasional deer carcass, and pieces of metal that are reminders of the road’s peril. On this day, there are glimpses of autumn on the trees, but once the winter weather arrives in the mountains, I-80 can become a truck-eating beast. And you wonder why, according to the American Trucking Associations, we're short 80,000 truck drivers.

As you likely discovered over the past three years, the nation's supply chain did a pretty good job of delivering all the toilet paper and canned goods you really couldn't use, but the pandemic exposed some serious weaknesses, too-namely that the $750 billion trucking industry, which carries 72.5 percent of our freight, is fraught with systemic inefficiencies, and environmental and safety issues.