The light bulb went on for me when someone said it doesn’t have to be commercial airliner safe. It just has to be safer than human drivers.
Truth be told, that is actually a pretty low bar, which suggests it will be a reality sooner rather than later.
BTW, one of the things the guy I worked for made a big deal about regarding peterbilt vs Kenworth at the time was in their frames. He showed me a frame to a Kenworth and said, “See all those holes in the frame? those are all the pre-drilled holes for the various options that that particular truck doesn’t have. Now, notice the Peterbilt frame has no holes in it. That is because each frame is drilled only for the items that particular truck has attached to the frame. They are much more “custom built” than the Kenworths.
And now my son owns a fleet of 11 Fuel trucks (for refueling parked big rigs and construction equipment. He has 10 Peterbilts and bought one Kenworth. He told me he’s selling it and going straight Peterbilt because they are better (I don’t remember if it was reliability, driveability or what).
Peterbilt and Kenworth are both built by Paccar. Kenworth is the flagship.
he is right peterbilt is the best ever made i spent 30 years driving them.