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Looking like a delegation of toasters from space, a generation of electrically powered, self-driving mail trucks will roll out of a suburban Detroit industrial park later this year. Their mission: Revolutionize mail and package delivery.

Transport Topics has partnered with Spoken Layer to make one-minute daily briefings available on all your smart devices. Simply say “Alexa, play Transport Topics” or “Okay Google, talk to Transport Topics” to get the day’s biggest trucking headlines.

ATLANTA — The future of autonomous trucks is further down the road than people believe, but final-mile delivery by robots is closer to larger use, said Steve Banker of ARC Advisory Group, giving his assessment of future disruption at the SMC3 Jump Start conference.

Organizers for this year's gathering of the Transportation Research Board in Washington have come up with a list of a dozen topic areas that policymakers need to address to ensure a sustainable transportation network.

Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. will join forces to build pickup trucks, delivery vans and possibly more, pledging to put old rivalries aside and work together to confront a rapidly changing auto industry.

Infrastructure and trade loom large for trucking in the year ahead as freight carriers adjust to a slower, but still positive, rate of economic growth in 2019, according to industry experts interviewed by Transport Topics.

The decision by General Motors to cease production at five of its factories in the United States and Canada will have consequences for trucking companies that serve those plants.

DETROIT — General Motors will lay off 14,700 factory and white-collar workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it restructures to cut costs and focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles.