Waabi unveils autonomous truck made in partnership with Volvo

Self-driving motortruck startup Waabi shared Tuesday astatine TechCrunch Disrupt the motorboat of a caller autonomous motortruck made successful concern with Volvo, the Volvo VNL Autonomous truck.

The unveiling comes 8 months since the Uber- and Nvidia-backed startup announced it was partnering with Volvo Autonomous Solutions to physique a custom-built motortruck based connected Volvo’s autonomy level utilizing Waabi’s bundle stack.

Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun said connected TechCrunch Disrupt’s AI signifier the institution has the imaginable to beryllium the archetypal to commercialize self-driving trucks without a quality information operator oregon observer. The remark was a flimsy excavation astatine Aurora, a rival that launched a commercialized driverless work with a quality perceiver successful the motortruck cab.

“We tin thrust successful generalized aboveground streets crossed close present successful Texas, and you volition beryllium capable to spot america crossed the full U.S. implicit the adjacent fewer years arsenic well,” said Urtasun, who antecedently served arsenic main idiosyncratic astatine Uber ATG earlier launching Waabi successful 2021.

Waabi rival Aurora has a akin woody with Volvo, and the 2 companies unveiled a self-driving motortruck successful May 2024. Aurora launched a commercialized service, which has a quality perceiver connected board, earlier this twelvemonth connected a way betwixt Dallas and Houston and Tuesday announced it was expanding to El Paso. Waabi is utilizing the aforesaid truck, but it features Waabi’s tech, including its sensor suite, compute, and the Waabi Driver software. 

Waabi’s self-driving strategy called the Waabi Driver is an end-to-end AI exemplary that enables the motortruck to standard autonomous driving crossed antithetic geographies, including highways and wide aboveground streets. Waabi says this enables commercialized operations that are scalable, conscionable the needs of customers, and enactment wrong existing logistics operations.  

“Volvo VNL has been built from the crushed up for the redundancies truthful that you tin region the quality operator and you tin physique a local, harmless product,” Urtasun said. “Our sensor poles are ace lightweight, it’s precise casual to integrate astatine the mill line.”

Waabi’s concern with Volvo builds connected the automaker’s investment into the startup successful 2023 via its task arm, Volvo Group Venture Capital. Volvo participated successful Waabi’s $200 cardinal Series B successful 2024.