Will the costs of autonomous commercial vehicle (ACV) technology in the trucking industry overshadow the benefits? Or will it prove to be the other way around, with fuel savings, driver lifestyle enhancement, and safety improvements outweighing the price tag of ACVs?
Global consulting firm Frost & Sullivan delved into those questions in a new study entitledThe Strategic Outlook of Autonomous Heavy-Duty Trucks and found that some “price-sensitive” markets may be slow to adopt such technology, whereas in others – notably the long-haul trucking sector – may experience at minimum a return on investment (ROI) period of three years.
Wallace Lau, an industry analyst with the automotive & transportation practice at Frist & Sullivan told Fleet Owner that a variety of ACV-related systems are already in use today within the trucking industry, such as electronic stability control (ESC), collision avoidance technology, rear- and forward-view camera systems, plus related electronic sensor arrays needed for transmitting data between such systems and a truck’s engine, transmission, and brakes.