It was unfortunate that Elon Musk went sideways with President Trump, because there are enough problems in the world without something like a minor scuffle to derail what are otherwise fantastic opportunities.  Inflation is down, as predicted, and the economy is expected to boom.  And a lot of the debt we are currently incurring will easily be paid off with growth, if you can keep foreign and domestic terrorists from shutting the world down again with another COVID-type bioweapon.  The relationship Elon Musk has had with the White House has been positive so far in 2025, and there are many people who would like to see that optimism end.  And because of Elon Musk’s embrace of the MAGA movement and the great work he did with DOGE, I have been planning to get a Cybertruck.  I think it’s the best vehicle in the world being made right now.  I don’t mind that it’s electric.  I like traditional fossil fuel vehicles, but the power that these electric engines produce is an excellent example of fantastic engineering, so I am very interested in all Tesla products.  And I want them to continue to grow in market share.  But when Elon Musk got upset and supported an impeachment of President Trump, I dropped those plans for a Cybertruck faster than a New York second.  If Musk isn’t supporting MAGA, I’m not supporting Musk.  I might like him.  I might cheer him on as an innovator.  But I’m also not going to go out of my way to buy a Tesla if I can’t believe in the creator himself.  I only looked at Tesla vehicles because of Musk’s embrace of President Trump.  So we’ll see if any reconciliation lasts, or if it’s just a matter of personal survival.  Always judge people not by what they say, but by what they do.

But speaking of Elon Musk, self-driving vehicles, especially the Tesla semi trucks, and MAGA, there is a lot of fear that the self-driving aspect of these modern vehicles is just another way to steal jobs away from Americans.  But I don’t see it that way at all.  I’ve pointed out before that electric semi-trucks don’t have the range to replace full-time, diesel over-the-road trucks.  The concern is that self-driving trucks will replace the jobs of professional truck drivers.  However, I believe it will only benefit them, as the transportation industry is overly regulated. Therefore, when asked, “Why the Tesla semi?” the answer is a solution to overregulation that makes being a truck driver a challenging occupation. And that if you could change the nature of the over-road part of it, then we might find more drivers who would want to enter that field.  The problem with shipping products from the West Coast to the East, for instance, is that drivers are forced to be on the road too long.   They have to stop every 11 hours within a 14-hour on-duty window after 10 consecutive hours off, and all of this has to be recorded in a logbook. It’s just a pain in the neck for the driver.  It forces them to be on the road longer and away from their families needlessly.  The regulators will say that it prevents accidents from driver fatigue.  I know a lot of truck drivers, I’ve dealt with thousands of them over the years and for them there is nothing worse than driving all across the country with all the regulations involved only to get to their destination and have to sit in the parking lot waiting for a manufacturing plant to open, to unload them, further wasting their time.  Transportation times across the country are ridiculously long due to excessive regulations and a lackadaisical approach to labor hours in manufacturing these days. 

Where the Tesla semi trucks come in is that they can drive automatically across the boring states, such as Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, and drop their loads off at designated drop lots outside major cities.  And from there, a live driver can get up and work an 8-hour day picking up that trailer and taking it the rest of the way to the destination.  I think it would create more truck driving jobs to use the self-driving trucks to haul loads over the vast distances where there isn’t much traffic.  Self-driving trucks could operate outside of that 11-hour window, significantly reducing delivery times and making the live driver’s time much more productive.  However, to impose all those restrictions on a live driver and force them to stay on the road for over a week due to regulatory burdens is unreasonable.  It is no wonder, then, that there is a shortage of drivers.  It’s fun to be on the road for short spurts, but day after day, year after year, it wears out families and makes life challenging.  We should be making the profession easier, not harder.  The Tesla semi would work well with a drop lot system, which would make more commerce available by removing the capacity ceiling.  With capacity being determined by the regulatory burdens.  The safest thing to do to a truck driver is to keep them from driving.  However, we want drivers to drive more and haul more product from one place to another, and that limit should not be confined to human driving hours. 

One of the most attractive aspects of Tesla vehicles to me is that they are self-driving.  I enjoy driving cars probably more than most people.  But I can think of a million things to do with my time than driving when I am just trying to get from one place to another.  And I could use that extra half hour in those drives around town to do other things if the car is driving itself.  I could improve my efficiency significantly if the car drove itself.  And I see that being the significant benefit to the Tesla line of products.  They enhance time management, which will undoubtedly benefit the trucking industry.  I always feel sorry for truck drivers at rest stops, forced to wait out their 11-hour driving window when they are still 2,000 miles from home, heading in the opposite direction.  If I were them, I’d want to drive for 16 hours straight and cut down my time on the road, so I could either spend more time with my family or have the opportunity to make more money with additional routes. However, as things stand, a significant amount of trucking capacity remains underutilized due to drivers being constrained by excessive regulation.  The Tesla Semi would help make those long routes much more manageable, making it more achievable to give drivers a regular 8-hour workday and the ability to get home to their families each night.  And to let the Tesla Semi handle the long over-the-road hauls, driving way past the 11-hour maximum.  I see an expansion of the trucking industry, making it more attractive for human drivers to become truck drivers, as the automated Tesla semis could handle the heavy lifting that is currently discouraging market entry.  And that part of making America Great Again is in making truck driving great, maybe for the first time.  Tesla’s innovation in self-driving vehicles can give human beings a great gift, greatly expanding economic opportunities in the future.  And that has more value than money, most of the time.

Rich Hoffman

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