Out on the assumed West, another startup rolled out a glamorous, driverless sedan, raised a billion in investment, and promised to launch tomorrow’s future taxi service. In the end, the technological marvel again hit a pole on a sunny day because the neural network got scared of a palm shadow. Investors are crying, founders are drinking smoothies, and they are asking for another year or two to finish developing the autopilot. While they struggle with their self-driving Teslas, in Russia, the guys have said: the first robot on the roads will be a KAMAZ—period. And this is no joke.

KAMAZ’s lead designer of innovative vehicles, Sergei Nazarenko, spoke plainly in an interview with TASS: driverless trucks will appear on Russian roads within a couple of years. Not in 2050, not when pigs fly, but very soon. And let’s be honest: teaching a hatchback to park in a driveway is a job for an IT specialist in glasses. But making forty tons of steel autonomously navigate the M-11 highway from Naberezhnye Chelny to St. Petersburg in a downpour, past drunken cottage owners, and potholes—that’s a hardcore challenge, operating at maximum difficulty, Siberia-level intensity.

Why long-haul trucking? Because our trucker isn’t just a driver; he’s a mobile branch of the Ministry of Culture, a reference bureau, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations all rolled into one. He knows where to find the best instant noodles, how to fix a turbocharger with a crowbar, and how to have a meaningful chat over the radio. But there’s a nuance. The dullest part of his job is endlessly driving a thousand kilometers straight down an empty highway, fighting sleep with a sixth energy drink per night. Automation will take that tedium first. Humans will be left with the most rewarding quests: maneuvering in a customer’s tight yard, interacting with a grumpy warehouse manager, and tracking down paperwork. Let the robot whir along the interstate at 90 mph, saving fuel and avoiding accidents.

Nazarenko emphasizes: we are following an evolutionary path. There are no abrupt leaps straight to the fifth (fully autonomous) level. First, we will test the vehicles in closed testing grounds, and only then will we release them in convoys onto dedicated lanes of toll highways. The hardware has been ready for a long time—our «KAMAZ» trucks have been driving on predefined routes for several years, detecting obstacles and recognizing lane markings even if they are covered by snow or mud. Right now, the most delicate work is underway—training the brains. Neural networks are being fed petabytes of data: Russian winters, sudden potholes, moose crossing federal highways, and the unique driving style of local minibusses.

By the way, while Western corporations are spending budgets on designing threshold lighting, tough Chelyabinsk engineers are thinking about the eternal—for instance, how to fix a drone in an open field when it’s minus thirty degrees? The answer is brilliant: the machine itself will call the repair crew and simultaneously diagnose the failure by speaking to a tired caretaker. And if things get really desperate, it will engage remote control mode, allowing an operator from a warm office in Naberezhnye Chelny to virtually take the joystick and gently maneuver the truck to a parking spot. No unnecessary pretense—just functionality.

So, relax. While everyone is posing in costumes on electric cars for Instagram, real Russian men are silently preparing a logistics revolution. In a couple of years, imagine this on the M-12: a column of trucks speeding by, blasting «Sector Gaza,» with the perfect road Americano brewing in the coffee machine. Our kind of progress is when the truck drives itself, because a person shouldn’t waste their life just maintaining a straight line—period.