Plus it just makes sense to solve an easier problem first and work it into the broader solution later

Cheaper truck transport also opens up more cost competitive manufacturing, factory placement. Which will be highly deflationary.

In a remote work world a large percentage of the workforce only has to travel for discretionary, not economic reasons.

Anyway, normalizing for cost-benefit, trucking clearly comes out ahead

It makes sense for the US Gov, just not for Google.

I don’t think the comment is “driving a truck is easier” but that trucks find themselves on the highway more.

I'd say driving along a relatively straight road on a high way is much easier (and less accident prone) than driving on a street in say SF or NYC.

Lower level semi-autonomous driving aids like Tesla's FSD can effectively use side channels (eg other vehicles) in some situations, but larger vehicles aren't able to do this as effectively.

Last but not least, there are tons of edge cases still handled by humans even if the above 2 points were handled.

I think the norm will be semi-autonomous low level driving aids in many conditions to more autonomous higher level driving aids in more limited conditions, but not fully autonomous vehicles in many conditions.

Having 1 driver is quite common in most of the world but most places don't run on that kind of infrastructure with that kind of loads. 2 crew has prevented massive desasters in US rail history.

If anybody was serious about logic, upgrading the rail infrastructure, totally new signaling system, electrification, shorter trains would allow for a huge amount of self driving.

But don't expect that rail companies will do any of that. They have very little punishment for there trains falling over, or delay caused by Amtrek and they can do with their crews as they like.

And if that’s the case, the human might as well just drive the train while he’s waiting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf5iBbmas2w

... until it isn't:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec8Yx-Mp-5s

Linked more for your interest than to make any point - the derailmant issues in the second link weren't directly linked to automation, but we do have big train sets here in W.Australia.

The various pure-play L4 companies that pivoted to trucking due to its alleged relative ease were simply exploiting layperson investor bias to rake it in (or possibly even had a similar bias due to lack of expertise). It's an open secret that Embark had virtually no chance to go to market, even in a good macro environment.