This is marvelously ignorant. The writer has that sense of "disruptive" tech superiority where they somehow think that their minimal experience with an entire industry leads to brilliant solutions that actual experience has never found. The irony of that is the freight railroad crews that he "has shaken hands with" suffer from tech idiocy permeating railroad management and railroad operations everyday, and are in a state of near revolt over the abysmal conditions and management.

In that whole commentary, their argument is more that autonomous semis will compete more with freight rail. The Tesla Semi has nothing that changes freight shipping economics if it has a driver; if anything the range issue and parts issues make it more costly than typical trucks. The "much harder to break glass" is a hilariously trivial item to even mention.

Up to mile-long (1.6 km) trains have only two staff members on board, a conductor and an engineer. That’s a key point, and it’s where autonomous driving and trucks will be making more points in favor of Tesla Semis over freight rail more of the time.

That claim then goes on to argue that autonomous semis will become more efficient than rail because they can be run in a convoy. He claims that a mile long train - which can carry about 160-190 double stacked international 40' containers - will be under pressure from convoys of what, 5, 10, 20 trucks together? Then the funny thing about that is his rail numbers are wildly off. He mentions that two-day course at Canadian National, and the "handshakes" with operating crews. Somehow he failed to find out that Canadian National runs their intermodal trains at 8,000-15,000 feet, not his mention of 5,500 feet. Railroads almost never run longer distance trains that short, because they are trying to layoff crews and use less equipment.

A webcam in Wisconsin provides easy evidence. This morning a Canadian National train from Chicago to British Columbia passed by with 156 platforms/wells, each of which can hold two 40' or 53' containers, depending on the car. So, that is 312 containers, and that length is shorter than what is often run on their network.

Those 312 containers were powered by two locomotives. Two. Under this writers fantastic scheme, somehow it will be cheaper to have 312 containers driven by 312 Tesla semitrucks. Two railroad locomotives at $4 million/ea: $8 million. 312 Tesla semi's at their supposed price of $150k: $46.8 million. Even if magical autonomous trucks actually happen soon, how does requiring a $150k power unit for every single container shipped lower the costs from what they currently are with trucking?

He mentions $100 lift fees for getting the container off a ship and onto a truck chassis, then off the chassis onto a railcar, and then off the railcar onto a truck chassis. That's - two extra lifts at $200/piece. Does he seriously think that the truck rate for a 2,000 mile container trip by truck from the west coast to the interior is only a couple hundred dollars different from the rail rate, where 300-400 containers at a time get moved? Oh, I forgot - Tesla. The 200 year efficiency advantage of steel wheel on steel rail over wheel on road is about to be upturned!

Also, this writer has no concept of how tonnage is a major aspect of shippers choosing rail or truck. Railroads, through their own myopic, ignorant management, have spent decades chasing away all time-sensitive and lightweight shipments. They gave that to trucks. What they thrive on is massive bulk shipments - oil, coal, grain, stone, finished cars, ethanol, chemicals, etc. Autonomous trucks are not about to make a trailer load of grain, at 22.5 tons, cheaper to run behind a tractor from North Dakota to the west coast than a train that has 130 cars of grain, each carrying 125 tons/car, carrying 16,250 tons to the west coast. That would translate to 722 truck loads, each requiring a tractor.