Daimler Truck North America (DTNA) announced Wednesday it has started delivering its latest flagship on-highway trucks to the autonomous testing fleet of Torc Robotics, a subsidiary of Daimler Truck.
DTNA says these trucks are based on the recently unveiled fifth-generation Freightliner Cascadia, which was introduced last year. The autonomous-ready version of the new Freightliner flagship is equipped with redundant safety features like braking and steering and is intended for series production.
“Delivering the latest iteration of our autonomous-ready vehicle platform, including production-intent autonomy hardware to Torc, marks a significant milestone for Daimler Truck towards series maturity and scaling,” says Joanna Buttler, head of Autonomous Technology Group at Daimler Truck.
Torc completed driver-out test runs on a multi-lane test track in Texas last year. DTNA and Torc say their next step is to further develop autonomous trucks to safely achieve the driver-out capability on public roads.
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“Our strong collaboration with Daimler Truck represents six years of success in advancing the future of freight. Fully integrating Torc’s autonomous driver with Daimler Truck’s Freightliner Cascadia platform creates an industry-first, scalable, physical-AI autonomous trucking solution,” says Peter Vaughan Schmidt, Torc CEO. “This will unlock tremendous value for our customers by addressing key industry pain points and presents a clear opportunity to generate revenue and drive meaningful transformation across the industry.”
In addition to existing test routes in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona, these trucks will also be tested in autonomous mode on a new lane in Texas between Laredo and Dallas, mainly on I-35, DTNA says. There is significant freight volume moving between Laredo and Dallas, connecting major cities like San Antonio and Austin.
Torc recently announced it has signed a leasing agreement for an autonomous hub in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. This hub will serve as the operational base for its autonomous testing efforts, customer freight pilots and future commercialization. Torc is driving toward productization, positioning itself to scale and commercialize safe, robust autonomous trucking solutions on this busy freight corridor under real-world conditions, the company says.
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Driving toward autonomy has been a DTNA priority for many years.
The company states it was the first in the industry to develop a scalable, powertrain-agnostic, redundant autonomous vehicle platform. To enable SAE Level 4 autonomous driving, the company has purposefully designed and built redundancy into the Freightliner Cascadia platform for safety-critical systems for safe, driverless operations. With over 1,500 engineering requirements, all translated into features, and a second set of electronically controlled systems like an integrated power network, the autonomous-ready Cascadia sets an industry standard for autonomous systems integration, the company says.
Looking ahead, Daimler Truck and Torc state they aim to enter the U.S. market with SAE Level 4 autonomous trucks by 2027. In this application, the autonomous driving system takes over the entire dynamic driving task between two freight hubs. DTNA states autonomous trucks can enhance business operations and manage increasing freight volumes, especially during driver shortages. They also have the potential to reduce accidents, as the system remains alert and never tires. DTNA has highlighted the highly scalable and profitable market opportunities that autonomous driving is expected to offer, the company says.
