Uber's self-driving trucks have debuted on the sunny roads of Arizona. In November 2017, the ride-sharing company announced that it was launching self-driving trucks capable of running deliveries. As of today, an Uber truck has carried freight over 344 miles without a human in the driver's seat. While the trucks continue to have a licensed driver in the passenger seat, Uber eventually plans for its trucks to drive themselves without a human present altogether.

Uber has contacted truck companies in an effort to play a larger role in deliveries outside of preliminary vehicle testing. Uber's present program requires a trucker to meet the self-driving truck along the Arizona state border, which then autonomously carries shipment from Arizona to the next point. There, a human truck driver receives the freight, and continues on its way. Although this is only the beginning, self-driving trucks could have a larger impact on the truck shipment sector as a whole. For now, the primary change is that truck drivers, who are required by law to drive only for a limited period of time due to alertness and safety concerns, can use the self-driving trucks to sleep. Given that truck drivers are paid by the amount of time they operate a truck, they may also accrue a better salary in their sleep. Likewise, self-driving trucks can allow a trucker to continuously carry freight to make deliveries more efficient. Rather than carrying empty trucks back, a trucker may simply exchange items with a self-driving truck, delivering freight faster.

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Uber is not the only company focused on building new roads to the future. Other startups and companies such as Tesla (TSLA  ) and Waymo are also creating self-driving trucks as well. The latter - formerly known as Google's (GOOGL  ) self-driving car project - has announced plans to launch a self-driving pilot in Atlanta that will carry cargo to Google data centers.

Some critics assert that the introduction of self-driving cars, while beneficial for the present moment, may eventually lead to a shortage of jobs for human truckers. Wendell Wallach, Senior Advisor of research foundation The Hastings Center, believes that switching to self-driving cars will cost 14,000 truckers their jobs. But some are less concerned. American Trucking Associations CEO Chris Spear asserted that there will be a shortage of approximately 100,000 truckers in the next five years instead. Spears explained that the possibility of truckers losing their jobs is "absolutely ludicrous" and that "maybe [in several] decades we're talking about a driverless environment."

Until then, the Uber team still has technological issues to address with its trucks. The company is currently trying to program its trucks to leave lanes in the presence of a pulled-over emergency vehicle in accordance with Arizona law. In addition, the truck must still learn how to conduct itself in the presence of human drivers to avoid tailgating or cutting off other drivers when switching lanes.