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Right now, there's a shortage of truck drivers in the US and worldwide, exacerbated by the e-commerce boom brought on by the pandemic.

One solution to the problem is autonomous trucks, and several companies are in a race to be the first to launch one. Among them is San Diego-based TuSimple.

Founded in 2015, TuSimple has completed about 2 million miles of road tests with its 70 prototype trucks across the US, China and Europe. Although these are simply commercially available trucks retrofitted with its technology, TuSimple has deals in place with two of the world's largest truck manufacturers -- Navistar in the US and Traton, Volkswagen's trucking business, in Europe -- to design and build fully autonomous models, which it hopes to launch by 2024.

The Coradia iLint by French rail transport company Alstom is the world's first hydrogen-powered passenger train. It began testing in Germany in 2018, and in September 2020 entered regular service in Austria.

The Yara Birkeland is what its builders call the world's first zero-emission, autonomous cargo ship. The ship is scheduled to make its first journey between two Norwegian towns before the end of the year. Click through to see more forms of transport set to transform the future.