Driverless Trucks Set To Take Over 16 Million Chinese Jobs
May 6th, 2017: China as a nation has been on the forefront of robotic and automation innovation for the past couple of years. China is currently the biggest market for industrial robots and does not plan on stopping anytime soon.
The Chinese Giant Baidu, revealed its first driverless truck last year. The driverless truck is set to revolutionize the 300$ billion Chinese transport industry by Introducing competition and innovation in a market, that has been stagnant for quite some time now.
This new push by the Chinese Government towards driverless truck is an attempt to rejuvenate the falling economic growth of the country. China's new plan of "Made in China 2025" is another step in the direction towards national automation of the Chinese industry.
At this point in time, only 30% of China's technological innovations make it to the current global market. On the other hand, 70% of innovations make it to the market from advanced technological nations. China plans on changing this ratio in logistics by introducing driverless trucks on a national scale.
TuSimple is another Beijing-based technological company that has been testing driverless trucks for quite some time now. The tech giant is working in collaboration with an undisclosed Chinese truck manufacturer. According to a research by TuSimple, almost 40% of the transportation costs that are incurred by transportation are a result of driver's wages and other costs.
Although most people are not happy about this automation of the transport industry, drivers will still be required to be present in driverless trucks and other vehicles. Automation and other technological advancements will significantly reduce the effort on the driver's part, but a person would still be required to monitor the operations of the driverless truck.
China plans to handle mass layoffs by relocating people to more skill based occupations rather than labor based work.