Daimler Trucks zeros in on driver safety and freight efficiency as its main autonomous technology goals.
Daimler announced a strategic partnership with Luminar Technologies, a provider of automotive lidar hardware and software technology, to address a key enabling technology for autonomous truck operation, or what Daimler calls "highly automated" trucks.
An autonomous-truck partnership between Waymo and Daimler will produce a unique version of the Freightliner Cascadia fitted with integrated redundancy for all safety systems, rather than bolt-on components. It will be driven by Waymo's advanced AI driving system, The Waymo Driver.
Daimler Trucks showed off a Mercedes-Benz concept truck powered by fuel cells, with a range of up to 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles). Customer trials are to start in 2023. It also outlined when its battery-electric eActros trucks are projected to be available, with a first look at a long-haul version.
Unlike their competitors, Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics won’t give a definitive timeline to deployment for driverless trucks — and say that in their development, they must be built from the ground up.
In a bold move, Daimler Truck AG and the Volvo Group agreed to join forces in an effort to speed up the development, establishment and acceptance of fuel cell vehicles – at a time when much of the focus on electric trucks among legacy truck makers has been on battery-electric solutions.
A global initiative to set up charging infrastructure for battery-electric commercial trucks launched by Daimler will initially push to establish in the U.S. and Europe charging stations at truck terminals and shops; what Daimler refers to as “depot charging.”
Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics are expanding testing of automated truck technology to new public routes in the U.S., with further development and validation efforts to continue in Virginia.
Penske Truck Leasing said the two electric eCascadia Freightliner Class 8 tractors it is evaluating have already reached 10,000 real-world operational miles.
Daimler Trucks and Torc Robotics are actively developing and testing automated trucks with SAE Level 4-intent technology on public roads.