I imagine (some of) the transport companies will lower their prices, it's the McDonalds, Best Buy, Wallmart, and everybody else who has no reason to lower their prices, even though their costs have dropped.
And so long as the cost to get into the industry is high (the up-front cost of a driver is effectively 0, whereas AI will be non-0), and the incumbents have the ability to drop their prices lower than any new startup (thanks to the efficiencies of scale), serious new competition will be rare.
Even considering all that, the cost for shipping something is remarkably low to begin with. $400 for an 40' shipping container worth of goods over 300 miles? Drop the driver from the equation entirely, and that cost would only go down by about $100. As a point of reference, a 40' shipping container full of bananas is worth in excess of $58,000 (1000 boxes per container, 100 bananas per box, $0.58 per banana).
And so long as the cost to get into the industry is high (the up-front cost of a driver is effectively 0, whereas AI will be non-0), and the incumbents have the ability to drop their prices lower than any new startup (thanks to the efficiencies of scale), serious new competition will be rare.
Even considering all that, the cost for shipping something is remarkably low to begin with. $400 for an 40' shipping container worth of goods over 300 miles? Drop the driver from the equation entirely, and that cost would only go down by about $100. As a point of reference, a 40' shipping container full of bananas is worth in excess of $58,000 (1000 boxes per container, 100 bananas per box, $0.58 per banana).
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