Autonomous Trucks Hit Cost Parity With Human Drivers by 2028

Autonomous trucking in the U.S. could match the per-mile cost of human-driven trucks as soon as 2028, according to new research from consultancy Kearney and the MIT Mobility Initiative.

The numbers behind that crossover are stark. Operating an autonomous truck in the U.S. cost roughly $4 a mile in 2026, against $2.50 a mile for a truck with a driver, when fuel, employee benefits, insurance and other factors are counted. But the gap closes fast on current projections.

What does the cost curve look like?

Kearney and MIT expect autonomous trucking costs to fall to $3.30 a mile in 2027 and then $2.60 in 2028. Human-driven trucking, meanwhile, moves the other way: $2.60 per mile next year and $2.70 in 2028. That's a full cost crossover within two years on the U.S. model.

The U.S. timeline is aggressive because labor eats half the cost base. "Since about 50% of a U.S. truck's cost per mile goes to the driver, the United States has much more cost to remove," Kearney explains. "Autonomy pays off first where drivers are expensive and in short supply."

Other regions lag. In Europe, the same crossover isn't expected until closer to 2030. In the Middle East, closer to 2032. Driver costs in both regions run substantially lower than in the U.S., so autonomy has less margin to strip out.

Who else sees 2028?

Goldman Sachs reached a similar conclusion in a separate report released in May. The bank predicted autonomous semi-trucks would be cheaper to operate than human-driven trucks by 2028 — independently landing on the same year as Kearney and MIT.

Are the technology's costs already there?

In live trials, some operators claim they already beat the projections. Bot Auto, a U.S.-based autonomous trucking company, ran a trial earlier in 2026 that delivered the country's first ever fully humanless commercial truckload. CEO Xiaodi Hou put the all-in cost of that trip at under $2 a mile.

Aurora's numbers point the same way. In a case study of an autonomous trucking trial between Fort Worth and Phoenix, Aurora estimated a per-mile cost of just $1.84 — well below both the current human-driver baseline and Kearney's 2028 parity figure.

For carriers and shippers, the commercial implications are direct. If the per-mile economics invert by 2028, truckload pricing on long-haul lanes faces structural downward pressure, and fleets sitting on expensive driver payrolls will carry a cost disadvantage against early autonomy adopters. Forwarders bidding annual truckload contracts should expect autonomous capacity to enter rate negotiations on lanes like Fort Worth-Phoenix first, where the business case is already proven.

What could still slow it down?

Three risks loom over the timeline:

• Safety in bad weather and around unexpected road hazards, where autonomous systems remain unproven at scale.
• Cybersecurity. A March 2026 analysis from the U.S. Department of Transportation identified more than 90 potential cybersecurity threat scenarios in a model system allowing human operators to remotely assist autonomous commercial vehicles.
• Labor and regulatory pushback. In August, Teamsters California sued the state's Department of Motor Vehicles over rules allowing heavy-duty driverless trucks, arguing regulators failed to adequately assess risks to public safety and potential job losses.

The lawsuit signals that even if the economics arrive in 2028, the legal framework may not. Watch whether per-mile costs track Kearney's glidepath next year — a fall to $3.30 would confirm the parity case is running on schedule.