I’d add that it might be much easier to make long-distance trucks self-driving than local distribution in many cases. My dad was a wholesaler to restaurants, I rode in the trucks to make deliveries sometimes, and I can tell you that making a self-driving truck work bringing food to pizzerias in NYC requires a willingness to double park and get tickets, and human-level maneuvering to carry stuff into weirdly shaped storage rooms. So even when we do have automated trucks, there will likely be humans carrying stuff on and off them for a while.
That seems entirely plausible to me.
I’d add that it might be much easier to make long-distance trucks self-driving than local distribution in many cases. My dad was a wholesaler to restaurants, I rode in the trucks to make deliveries sometimes, and I can tell you that making a self-driving truck work bringing food to pizzerias in NYC requires a willingness to double park and get tickets, and human-level maneuvering to carry stuff into weirdly shaped storage rooms. So even when we do have automated trucks, there will likely be humans carrying stuff on and off them for a while.