Low-speed, electrified, increasingly autonomous vehicles are going to be the norm, not the outlier. Standardized roro boxes and cargo trikes are part of it.
I found the LLM-generated image very off-putting. I would have rather seen some example vehicles like the ones described in the article.
I’ve found this one used by the French postal service.
Credit where it’s due, as the article has a caption declaring that the image is a DALL-E rendering and not actually related to the article. Disclosure is good. Avoiding gratuitous AI renderings would be even better.
The author makes some interesting observations that people not living in dense cities may have noticed. I think the prediction of autonomous low-speed cargo bikes is a bit far fetched and will be chronically “ten years away”, but it does highlight the complexity of logistics, for which global companies like FedEx and UPS have to adapt to in the changing urban environment.
As for standard cargo sizes, the author is very careful with his words, predicting that RORO boxes will be standardized, not that all cargo bikes will adopt this shape and form. That’s an important distinction, since national and international shipping rely on fitting things together, like Lego bricks. But consumers? They vote with their feet.
Indeed, you can get cargo bikes and trikes in all shapes and forms, and none so far have won out as the dominant form. Whereas standards that the world has basically adopted through sheer use include: the TEU shipping container; the approximate 4-5 ft wheel gauge for automobile, wagons, and chariots going back to the Roman era; standard gauge rail (1435 mm); the SI units (which the US foot is based on, post 1959); bicycle and motorbike chains on the starboard side.
If international shipping settles upon a pallet or RORO box size for their use, then that’ll be entirely separate from what consumers will be riding. Not less your hobby involves buying pallet-sized quantities of goods and hauling them back yourself from the shipping terminal.
Right, just like people could theoretically buy a vehicle that transports shipping containers but they have no reason to. I guess where consumers do start to interact personally with standardized container sizes are things like aluminum beverage cans. Personally I’d love to see more standardization but companies selling to individual consumers have an urge to make their packaging as unique as possible.
I’m racking my brain for any examples where consumer standards followed directly from a container dimensional limitation, and I’ve come up empty. Obviously, manufacturers and shippers take those considerations seriously so as to maximize volumetric efficiency, but I would think if a consumer good can fit multiple units onto a standard pallet, the shipping system can accommodate it.
Non-standard pallets exist, but I’ve yet to come across one which was over 2.4 meters (8 ft) on one side, and that was because a leg press is necessarily an odd size.
I’d posit to say that consumer standardization is more focused on components, like Shimano HG-compatible sprockets or USB C. That still leaves room for creating value by combining standardized components into appealing products of different sizes and shapes. But you’re right that vendors – particularly older industries using tech as a differentiator (eg automakers) – are increasingly diverging from standards to trap people into their ecosystems.
Good thoughts, I was thinking about USB too. I’d love to see standardization of batteries for power tools, but seems like it would require regulation.
These things seem to line up with profit incentive - if it saves the company money, standardize, if it makes the company money, create variation…
As an aside, I vaguely recall many years ago, a major TV manufacturer announced a flat panel TV – maybe plasma? – so large that it had to be shipped by airplane. And only one such TV could fit, because when placed horizontally it would only fit at the widest part of the cabin.
This is, of course, an incredible waste of aircraft hauling capacity, but I suspect it was more of a tour-de-force than meant for sale. And since that stunt many years ago, LCD manufacturing yields have improved remarkably and TVs have never been cheaper and larger. Once these TVs exceed the height of a TEU, then I think that would be an example of a container limitation affecting the consumer, whichever oddball consumer needs an 2.5 meter high TV lol
I’ll be surprised if TVs get much larger. We’re already have Modular wall displays if you want a theater at home, though most still use projectors in that situation.
The problem is that most homes don’t have a big enough room for a TV wider than 60 inches or so.
Agreed. It would have to be something really decadent to warrant larger TVs, like outfitting rooms without windows so that they can still have a floor-to-ceiling “sea view” despite being on the interior of an apartment tower.
And such a thing would be closer to home furnishings rather than what we’d normally consider as consumer goods.
I don’t quite follow. These roro boxes fit the description of a standard pallet (2 meters cubed, taller and longer than wide), why not just outright have a single pallet shipping container? Or is this a cheeky reskin of a pallet?
