There is a growing consensus that trucks will be ahead of cars in the progression to full autonomy, and will therefore be proving ground for each stage of the journey. But smart trucks will require greater levels of back office integration and remote control than cars, because of the functions they have to perform, including operation in platoons as well as potentially automated loading and unloading. This has spawned some initiatives to develop the enhanced ecosystem autonomous trucks will require, although at this stage these are disjointed proprietary schemes. It remains to be seen how these schemes will be joined up, or whether just one or two will come to prevail. Self-driving trucks will be deployed first and at higher…