With the recent release of Tesla’s full self-driving beta, fully autonomous vehicles are a hot topic right now.
On Tuesday, Waypoint announced that its company Waymo would be partnering with Daimler to develop fully autonomous trucks. The development of the autonomous trucks are expected to improve both efficiency and road safety, as well as bridging the gap between continents.
President and CEO of Daimler North America, Roger Nielsen, said, “The combination of increased road freight volumes and the need and vision of fleet operators for highly automated trucks, is what fuels our relentless pursuit of innovation. We are pushing engineering solutions that strive above all to increase safety and help our customers improve business efficiencies.”
Nielsen continued, “Based on our collaboration with Waymo, we will be in the unique position to be able to provide our fleet customers with a choice among the best solutions for their individual requirements.”
The companies are poised to succeed, especially with scandals related to Nikola Motors, another company with plans to create trucks for the mass market. Despite the fact that Nikola had not planned to develop autonomous semis, its fall from grace still represents a major market gap that Daimler and Waymo are likely to take advantage of.
Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., which is the parent company of Google. Currently, Waymo operates a self-driving taxi service in greater Phoenix, Arizona, known as Waymo One, leveraging LiDAR and radar to operate.
