....because large trucks required more constant maneuvering than large ships. Large ships are nearly "point n fire" vehicles, automated trucks would be the same.

I understand your point... however, I disagree with you. Adjustments will be made to ease the use of automated trucks and it will become more like marine shipping (which was my point.)

I also believe there will be a dramatic change to distribution centers to facilitate the use of automated trucking in the next 5 years. Especially with innovation from Amazon (have logistics needs and funding to justify trying almost anything) and Tesla (has vehicle automation ability and stupid levels of investor funding AND are building gigafactories that will require top tier logistics.) Too much money to be made for it to be left as an unsolved problem.

Let's say you have 100 truck drivers that regularly run routes to a dist center. The median pay for a trucker is $40,000/yr. That means that if you were to eliminate that overhead for 10 years, and amortize it, you can spend $400 million on a facility to break even. I'm pretty sure the most braindead contractor in the world could build a pull-through, harbor-like facility for automated trucks with that kind of funding.

At sites where that type of investment isn't made, it's not hard to imagine paying 1 dude even $200,000/yr to do last mile piloting/maneuvering when it could save them $3.8 million/year using the numbers above.

Also, my ethos is that I work in long range, machine to machine communications and asset tracking

...and I used to be a mechanic before I realized I like being physically healthy after work. I like to think this is one of the rare subjects that is "firmly in my wheelhouse."