re: Tesla Semi could be ‘the biggest catalyst in trucking in decades’

This effort by Musk and Tesla is most equivalent to GM's pushing street trolley cars out of business by conspiring with oil and tire companies so that buses -and eventually cars would be preferred and purchased.

The very big difference is that today, there doesn't appear to be a critical mass of natural allies for such a conspiracy to succeed at the pace suggested by many breathless media reports.

The push for electric and/or driver-less cars is being made primarily through a marketing campaign -that includes a heavy DC lobby component. Its design is to drive approval for investments to develop efficient battery technologies and recharging networks that currently, in effect, do not exist.

This campaign centers around global warming issues, safety, and inevitability.

The global warming argument is semi-laughable because the electricity to run vehicles still has to be produced and transported which, at least currently, will effectively increase the outputs of the current CO2/SO2 emitting network of energy plants, thus merely transferring this so-called green house gas production. And though the total effect is debated, there is no denying that the production of vehicle batteries themselves leaves a significant CO2 footprint -not too mention fire and flourine hazards of such energy sources.

The safety argument for autonomous vehicles is premature at best and dishonest at worst: what about obstacles such as CPU/software failure or corruption -it's not like that never happens. Or what about transitional incrementalism - the idea that the entire system of land-based transportation will not all transition to an autonomous state at the flip of a switch, thus exponentially increasing variables related to safety. And don't even begin to think about basic infrastructure barriers - does anyone really think there is a magical software solution to account for that pothole in the road that wasn't there yesterday? Oh, and did I mention the fire and flourine hazards of such batteries?

Inevitability does exist but it's time line is far from certain. My best guess would be in 30 years time, things like electric driver-less cars will be more common than not. But again, that's based purely on a guess.

The automobile was invented around 1885 and horses and carriages were still in substantial, yet small, proportional effect as a viable economic option in this country -thanks in part to the Great Depression- as late as the 1930s. I don't think that a transition to electric will take quite that long but the battery and recharging technology/infrastructure is still a long way off...

And as far as driver-less vehicles go, let's tap the brakes before the human animal, with it's own innate drive to be autonomous, fully checks in...