Volvo and Aurora's Self-Driving Truck Hits the Road

TapTechNews May 21st news, Volvo announced its cooperation with the self-driving start-up Aurora in 2021, and today the first 'ass-producible' self-driving truck jointly manufactured by the two parties has finally hatched and landed.

This truck is based on Volvo's new VNL and is an 8-class semi-trailer truck specifically designed for long-haul transportation. The self-driving version of this truck is equipped with a series of sensors and cameras and features Aurora's Level 4 self-driving solution, enabling the truck to operate without a driver.

Nils Jaeger, President of Volvo's self-driving solutions, said in a statement:

This truck is the first truck of our standardized global self-driving technology platform, which will enable us to launch more models in the future and bring self-driving technology to all truck brands of the Volvo Group and other regions and use cases.

TapTechNews note: The North American commercial vehicle (truck) classification standard divides commercial trucks into three major categories and eight levels according to the total weight of the vehicle, among which levels 1-3 are light trucks, levels 4-6 are medium trucks, and levels 7-8 are heavy trucks.

And in 8-class heavy trucks, Volvo's market share is approximately 10%. The two companies have already tested their technologies on public roads, and among them, the Aurora company has already traveled 1.5 million miles on commercial roads.

The Aurora company said that it plans to deploy 20 fully self-driving trucks this year and aims to expand to about 100 trucks in 2025 and finally sell them to other companies. The company also cooperates with the German automotive supplier Continental and plans to mass-deploy driverless trucks in 2027.