Daimler Trucks and Waymo will launch L4 self-driving trucks

 Recently, according to foreign media reports, Daimler Trucks Group announced on its official website that it is currently cooperating with Waymo to jointly build trucks that can achieve L4 autonomous driving.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik said: “It’s very rare that a leader in one field and a leader in another field join forces to create a revolutionary new product. But we are doing this. Thing."

Judging from the information published by Daimler Trucks on the official website, the cooperation between Daimler Trucks and Waymo is mainly to deploy autonomous driving technology up to the L4 level of the International Association of Autonomous Driving Engineers and deploy it to Daimler's Freightliner brand. Cascadia under.

According to the plans of both parties, in the next few years, Daimler Freightliner Cascadia truck models driven by Waymo's unmanned driving technology will be launched to American customers, and other Daimler brands of unmanned truck models will also be launched in other markets later.

This is not Daimler's first foray into autonomous truck technology. In August 2019, Daimler acquired a majority stake in a company called Torc Robotics. Like Waymo, this autonomous driving company in Virginia, USA, Torc Robotics focuses on the development of L4 autonomous driving technology, that is, vehicles can complete autonomous driving under specific geographic or road conditions without the involvement of human drivers.

Martin Daum, chairman of the Daimler Truck Management Committee, said that at least so far, the cooperation between Daimler and Waymo will mainly focus on chassis development and vehicle manufacturing, making it easier to integrate autonomous driving systems into On the vehicle. The two companies hope to jointly promote the development of autonomous driving technology and develop an unknown aspect of the autonomous driving system: the establishment of redundant systems on vehicles.

For Waymo, Daimler is not the first car manufacturer to reach a technical cooperation with it. Previously, Waymo’s partner list also included Renault-Nissan, Fiatc-Lesler, Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo.

There is always no shortage of players in the self-driving freight market. In addition to vehicle manufacturers, startups Ike, Embark, and Plus.a are also moving towards the goal of fully self-driving trucks. Tesla Semi is likely to be available at the Austin plant in 2021. Produce.