Daimler, Waymo to develop autonomous trucks

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Daimler Trucks and the autonomous driving company Waymo have partnered to deploy autonomous SAE L4 truck technology to address fleet customer road safety and efficiency.

“As leader of our industry, Daimler Trucks is the pioneer of automated trucking,” Martin Daum, chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck AG and a member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, said. “In recent years, we have achieved significant progress on our global roadmap to bringing series-produced highly automated trucks to the road. With our strategic partnership with Waymo as the leader in autonomous driving, we are taking another important step towards that goal.”

Daum said the partnership complements Daimler Trucks’ dual strategy approach of working with two strong partners to deliver autonomous L4 solutions seamlessly integrated with Daimler’s best-in-class trucks.

The initial collaboration is slated to combine Waymo’s automated driver technology with a version of Daimler’s Freightliner Cascadia to enable autonomous driving.

“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,” Waymo CEO John Krafcik said.

The autonomous Freightliner Cascadia truck equipped with the Waymo Driver would be available domestically in the coming years. Waymo and Daimler Trucks will investigate expansion to other markets and brands soon.