Autonomous semi-trucks could be cheaper to operate than human-driven trucks as soon as 2028, as the technology gets less costly and more widely available.

According to data released on April 30 by Goldman Sachs, the upfront cost to equip a truck with autonomous technology in the U.S. currently ranges between $125,000 and $150,000. However, that is expected to fall to $35,000-$40,000 by 2035, as hardware costs become less prohibitive, and production scales up. 

Overall, the all-in cost per mile for an autonomous vehicle (AV) truck is expected to drop from roughly $8.56 in 2025 to around $2.03 by 2035. Over that same period, the comparable per-mile cost for a human-driven truck is forecast to rise from $2.55 to $2.84 when factoring in expected increases in driver wages. At that rate, the lines will cross over sometime around 2028, with AV trucking becoming commonly cost-competitive compared to human-operated trucks.

The moment may already have come, for some routes and scenarios. On April 30, U.S.-based AV trucking company Bot Auto reported that it had successfully delivered the country's first ever fully humanless commercial truckload, after an autonomous semi-truck made the 230-mile journey from Houston to Dallas, Texas, without a safety driver or in-cab observer, and without remote human feedback. Speaking to Fox News, Bot Auto CEO and founder Xiaodi Hou estimated that the all-in cost for the trip came in under $2 per mile, well below the $2.55 per mile cost of a trip for a human-driven truck.

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"The economics are shifting quickly," Goldman Sachs says. AV trucks have several key advantages over human-operated alternatives, given that they are not subject to service restrictions that limit human operators to 11 hours of driving per day in the U.S., along with mandatory breaks. AV trucks could therefore cover more miles and could serve routes that would be impractical for humans, Goldman notes.

Once seen as a technology that was years away from viability, autonomous trucks are already moving beyond testing phases, to hauling commercial freight on public highways.