Driverless Trucks Hired at California Ports Losing Market Share
(Bloomberg) -- Regulatory and technological obstacles may hold back the driverless car for decades. But one of the first driverless semi-trucks is already driving legally on the highways of Nevada. Bloomberg's Sam Grobart went to Las Vegas for a test drive.
(Source: Bloomberg)Next year, deckhands on ships docked at Middle Harbor on California’s San Pedro Bay won’t see many people on the wharf. Remote-controlled cranes towering 165 feet overhead will pluck containers from vessels’ holds, and driverless trucks guided by magnets embedded in the asphalt will carry cargo to robotic hoists in a sorting yard.
The automated future is part of an efficiency drive at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the first- and second-biggest in the U.S. They’ve been losing market share for nearly a decade to nimble rivals including Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and Savannah, Georgia. One reason: It takes four days or less to unload a ship at those ports and as many as six in Southern California.