Waabi unveils autonomous truck made in partnership with Volvo

[ad_1] Self-driving truck startup Waabi shared Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt the launch of a brand new autonomous truck made in partnership with Volvo, the Volvo VNL Autonomous truck.

The disclosing comes eight months because the Uber- and Nvidia-backed startup introduced it was partnering with Volvo Autonomous Options to construct a custom-built truck based mostly on Volvo’s autonomy platform utilizing Waabi’s software program stack.

Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun stated on TechCrunch Disrupt’s AI stage the corporate has the potential to be the primary to commercialize self-driving vehicles with no human security driver or observer. The remark was a slight dig at Aurora, a competitor that launched a industrial driverless service with a human observer within the truck cab.

“We will drive in generalized floor streets throughout proper now in Texas, and it is possible for you to to see us throughout your entire U.S. over the following few years as properly,” stated Urtasun, who beforehand served as chief scientist at Uber ATG earlier than launching Waabi in 2021.

Waabi rival Aurora has an analogous take care of Volvo, and the 2 firms unveiled a self-driving truck in Might 2024. Aurora launched a industrial service, which has a human observer on board, earlier this 12 months on a route between Dallas and Houston and Tuesday introduced it was increasing to El Paso. Waabi is utilizing the identical truck, however it options Waabi’s tech, together with its sensor suite, compute, and the Waabi Driver software program.

Waabi’s self-driving system referred to as the Waabi Driver is an end-to-end AI mannequin that permits the truck to scale autonomous driving throughout totally different geographies, together with highways and common floor streets. Waabi says this allows industrial operations which are scalable, meet the wants of shoppers, and work inside present logistics operations.

“Volvo VNL has been constructed from the bottom up for the redundancies as a way to take away the human driver and you'll construct a neighborhood, secure product,” Urtasun stated. “Our sensor poles are tremendous light-weight, it’s very straightforward to combine on the manufacturing unit line.”

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Waabi’s partnership with Volvo builds on the automaker’s funding into the startup in 2023 through its enterprise arm, Volvo Group Enterprise Capital. Volvo participated in Waabi’s $200 million Sequence B in 2024.