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As original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and artificial intelligence startups continue to invest and develop autonomous driving systems, the perception that people have of the technology has remained volatile at best. Though there are two major factions within society, with one voicing support for self-driving technology and the other skeptical about its current relevance, the few accidents that happened last year during self-driving car test runs have led to many people siding with the naysayers.

To commercially deploy self-driving systems, it is critical to not just concentrate on the technology but also to ease the distrust people and governments have about its viability. David Barzilai, the executive chairman of Karamba Security, spoke about how OEMs could address fears by improving security and exhaustively looking at use cases of driving environments to develop or reinforce positive attitudes about the technology. Karamba Security is an Israeli-based company that focuses on securing autonomous technology from hackers via its cybersecurity software.

“If you take an autonomous taxi in Las Vegas, you see a driver sitting by the steering wheel, doing nearly nothing in most cases. This is because when it comes to the last-mile, there’s usually a driver who monitors the steering wheel, just to make driving safe,” said Barzilai. “Obviously, this is not for the long-term, or otherwise it would be missing the point of self-driving. But what we see now is the use of autonomous shuttles for short-range and well-defined routes, with the vehicles driving around at a slow speed of about 20 miles per hour at the maximum.”

However, apart from ensuring the functional safety of these vehicles, it is critical to increase cybersecurity as well, since autonomous vehicles will be prone to hacking, just like connected cars are a popular target at the moment. Barzilai explained that Europe is well ahead of the U.S. in terms of effecting regulations for improving the safety of self-driving vehicles.

In the U.S., the popular stance of regulators is to trail the industry and expect the market incumbents to work together to draft the relevant regulations. This could be counter-intuitive, as companies tend to have misplaced ideals when it concerns safety. Allowing automakers and self-driving technology start-ups to determine the framework behind regulations might lead to ineffective regulations, putting people at risk.

Europe is more cautious, with regulations for self-driving vehicles insisting on functional safety and also auto cybersecurity. Then again, no country has reached a position where it can scrutinize the ethics behind decisions that autonomous vehicles will have to take every instant while on the road.

“For example, a self-driving car is on the road and it suddenly observes a person on a bicycle  crossing its path. In a situation where it would be too late for the vehicle to stop, it will be faced with the decision of either veering to the right and run over pedestrians on the sidewalk, or hit the biker,” said Barzilai. “This is a machine-driven decision, and it will always remain a machine-driven decision. This has to do with ethics, and there’s no regulation under development that can address this issue at the moment.”

Even with the technology, some conditions need to be tweaked for a smooth riding experience. For instance, navigating roads in the last-mile is a challenge as vehicles will have to brake more often than when they are on a highway. Surprisingly, even with millions of miles of test runs and thousands of possible scenarios on record, self-driving vehicles still brake abruptly, making the ride a bit uncomfortable.

Barzilai explained that a fully automated vehicle (SAE Level 5) might not be a reality any time soon, but that Level 4 automation (which allows vehicles to autonomously drive across designated geofenced regions and allow human drivers to take control during the last-mile drive within populated spaces) is on the immediate horizon.

To improve auto cybersecurity, Barzilai insisted that it is essential to invite hackers to “attack” vehicles while they are on a test runs, to make sure all the loopholes on the code are fixed before they are manufactured en masse and commercially deployed.

Karamba Security puts this idea to use by virtualizing autonomous vehicles and deploying them globally for hackers to attack the system. This has helped Karamba uncover vulnerabilities which are relayed to OEMs for them to fix them before the vehicles go into production. By exposing problems early on, companies can ensure higher safety standards, and thus allay fears surrounding autonomous driving technology.

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On a call with freight procurement intelligence company, Beroe, Inc., Senior Analyst of Freight & Transportation Shijith Ajithkumar provided insights on the firm’s outlook for the global airfreight and road freight markets.

Beroe provides freight market research and procurement intelligence for more than 10,000 shippers worldwide.

In part one, the company’s global road freight market report is featured. “Category Intelligence on Road Freight Services” provides a demand outlook for global road freight by region along with insight on cost inflation, capacity and pricing.

The firm expects to see global road freight grow at a compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, of 4 to 5 percent, but notes that fuel prices, trade tensions and other headwinds could have an impact to its forecasted demand.

“With the increase in e-commerce and global trade, the Asia-Pacific region and parts of Africa are expected to be the future growth-driving markets for road freight service, but the impact of Brexit and U.S.-China trade sanctions, as well as surging fuel and labor costs, means that market volatility is expected over the next several years,” according to the report.

The expectation is for the Asia-Pacific road freight market (which serves the retail, agricultural products, oil and gas and automotive industries) to grow at a 6 to 8 percent CAGR and for the Middle East-Africa market to experience a 4 to 5 percent CAGR. This is better than the firm’s forecasted growth rates of 2 to 3 percent in Europe, 3 to 4 percent in North America and 4 to 5 percent in Latin America.

The report explained further, “With retail sales projected to increase by 5 to 6 percent in 2019, freight transport volume and demand will experience rapid growth.”

“Shipping demand is increasing worldwide as global gross domestic product continues its solid growth trajectory,” said Beroe’s Vice President, Research and Indirect Services Valekumar Krishnan. “We expect to see a dramatic expansion of the air and road freight markets over the next few years, particularly in Asia and Africa. With retail e-commerce growing at 14 to 15 percent every year, we’ll also see new demand for logistics in this market, and digital innovation will be more important than ever for air and road freight suppliers looking for a competitive edge.”

In short, the regions with less mature markets are likely to see the outsized growth rates. These markets are becoming more developed, but are less likely to see headwinds from driver shortages and regulation.

However, the freight carriers in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East-Africa markets face several difficulties. The cost structure is more favorable for shippers. Large- and medium-capacity buyers have buying power as trucking in these two markets remains a highly fragmented industry and a fewer number of shippers control a large portion of the available freight.

Further, additional cost concerns are mostly centered around fuel prices (new taxes on diesel in Asia, for example) and there is a growing concern that higher fuel prices will drive increased competition from the freight railroads.

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USA Truck is allowing its over-the-road driving team members to select when and where they take time off. 

The “Choose Your Hometime” program is geared toward providing USA Truck’s drivers with an enhanced work/life balance and flexible scheduling, including a weekly home-time option. Drivers may choose to take their home time at any time or location within the company’s approved network.

“We continually evaluate feedback from our driving fleet as well as from prospective and former team members, and home time is a recurring topic,” said Russell Overla, executive vice president of truckload operations. “There has never been more competition for qualified professional drivers, so we believe it’s important to listen and adapt whenever possible.”

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• GM is adding a four-cylinder engine to its full-size Silverado pickup, a highly unusual move.
• While customers are running to SUVs and trucks, automakers are trying to improve fuel economy to reduce exposure to rises in gas prices or regulation.

Big trucks are getting small engines. And that seems to be just fine.

General Motors said Friday it will sell a version of its full-size Chevrolet Silverado pickup with a four-cylinder engine, a highly unusual move for a truck that size.

The engine will replace the six-cylinder currently on the Silverado, and despite the two fewer cylinders, Chevrolet says the new engine is “expected to offer 22 percent more torque, greater fuel efficiency and a stronger power-to-weight ratio than the current model.”

It is yet another move by a major American automaker to improve efficiency in its biggest and often best-selling vehicles. U.S. automakers sell a lot of large trucks and SUVs, and have been moving away from selling passenger cars. But these actions have raised fears they will be vulnerable if gas prices rise or strict fuel regulations take effect.

Ford is going all-in on electrification, said Jim Farley, the company’s president of global markets, at an event at Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, earlier in the year.

The F-150 currently has a six-cylinder version of Ford’s EcoBoost engines, which use techniques such as turbocharging and direct fuel injection to improve efficiency. That engine was first introduced in 2009 while gas prices were coming off a 2008 record high above $4 a gallon.

Since then, low gas prices and a resurgent economy have sent consumers flocking back to trucks and SUVs, which is a trend industry observers don’t see reversing anytime soon.

The trouble is gasoline prices won’t always be so low. Of late, prices are on the rise. The U.S. average gasoline price climbed this week to $3 a gallon, due in part to pricier oil and the phasing in of summer-grade fuel.

This shift in the market toward larger vehicles has created a paradox, some would say a problem, in the American auto market. Automakers are making vehicles more fuel efficient than ever, but American consumers are buying less efficient vehicles.

While fuel efficiency has improved in individual models over their previous counterparts, the gains have been offset by a shift in the mix toward the larger vehicles, which has effectively frozen fuel economy for the entire fleet at about 25 mpg.

Meanwhile, fuel economy standards that took effect when Barack Obama was president in 2012 are now up for a midterm review. Automakers met with President Donald Trump earlier in May in part to discuss fuel standards, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to release a potentially updated version of the targets this summer.

The possibility that the government will make any adjustments to the Obama-era fuel economy standards, set in 2012, has inflamed environmentalists.

The trouble, automakers say, is the targets are too ambitious, especially in light of the fact that consumers are hungry for larger vehicles.

Automakers have considerably improved the fuel efficiency of the vehicles they sell. But as things stand they are going to have to keep improving, dramatically, to meet federal fuel efficiency targets over the next several years, and to shield against potential volatility in oil prices.

At the same time they are faced with customers who increasingly favor SUVs, trucks and crossovers, and want safety systems and other features that are making vehicles heavier.

Meanwhile, very few consumers seem to want hybrids or electric cars. Despite the proliferation of models, they form less than 5 percent of U.S. auto sales combined.

Fuel economy has improved in the U.S. by about 14 percent, from about 22 mpg in 2010 to around 25 mpg in 2017, said Carla Bailo, president and CEO of the Center for Automotive Research. And they are improving still at about a pace of 1 mpg per year, more or less, she said.

But if you look at what consumers are actually buying, fuel economy has stagnated, said Michael Sivak, who runs the automotive consulting firm Sivak Applied Research.

This may change if companies continue to improve the efficiency of power trains.

These big trucks are essential for Detroit’s Big Three automakers, Ford, GM and Fiat-Chrysler.

All three majors are expected to still control more than 80 percent of the U.S. market in pickup trucks, compared with only 39 percent of the SUV and crossover market, according to data from LMC Automotive.

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