Waymo has more than 20 million miles of real autonomous driving experience.
Daimler Trucks North America will build state of the art Class 8 vehicles.
Autonomous trucks should be available to customers in the coming years.
Large Class 8 trucks may soon be equipped with fully-autonomous driving technology. Waymo and Daimler trucks have announced that they will partner up to develop the technology and hopefully have available for customers within a few years.
First thing, a Level 4 Autonomous vehicle will require no driver input however it will retain a steering wheel and other controls in the event a driver needs to intervene. Waymo has already accumulated over a decade of autonomous driving experience with its “World’s Most Experienced Driver” which has logged billions of miles traveled. 20 million of these miles were completed on public roads across 25 US cities while another 15 billion were done in simulation.
Meanwhile, Daimler Trucks North America, Daimler Trucks’ U.S. subsidiary, the parent company of the Freightliner brand, will create a unique version of their Cascadia truck in which the autonomous technology will be built in.
Roger Nielsen, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck AG, President and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America LLC: “The combination of increased road freight volumes and the need and vision of fleet operators for highly automated trucks, is what fuels our relentless pursuit of innovation. We are pushing engineering solutions that strive above all to increase safety and help our customers improve business efficiencies. Based on our collaboration with Waymo, we will be in a unique position to be able to provide our fleet customers with a choice among the best solutions for their individual requirements.”
John Krafcik, CEO, Waymo: “We have the highest regard for Daimler’s engineering skills and broad global truck product portfolio, and so we look forward to scaling the Waymo Driver, together with our new partner, to improve road safety and logistics efficiency on the world’s roadways.”
