Driverless Trucks To Shake Up Industrial Real Estate Before Long
Driverless vehicles will be here sooner than you think, but the first in line aren’t the sleek robot-operated sedans we all want—they’re likely to be those of the 18-wheel variety.
Morgan Stanley lead analyst for automated vehicles Ravi Shanker says self-driving trucks will become a reality before self-driving cars, largely because trucking operators stand to make huge profits once they automate their fleets, Curbed reports. Freight trucking is a trillion-dollar business, moving 70% to 75% of all the things we use on a daily basis, and everyone from Anheuser-Busch to Amazon wants to see driverless trucks on the road as soon as possible.
The technology will have a huge impact on industrial real estate, letting warehouses move further away from the cities they serve and into cheaper, more remote areas. That’s because robots can drive longer than humans, letting companies cut real estate costs on their warehouses by moving out of prime locations while still being within reach of urban areas. [Curbed]
