Self-driving truck startup Waabi shared Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt the launch of a new autonomous truck made in partnership with Volvo, the Volvo VNL Autonomous truck.
The unveiling comes eight months since the Uber- and Nvidia-backed startup announced it was partnering with Volvo Autonomous Solutions to build a custom-built truck based on Volvo’s autonomy platform using Waabi’s software stack.
Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun said on TechCrunch Disrupt’s AI stage the company has the potential to be the first to commercialize self-driving trucks without a human safety driver or observer. The comment was a slight dig at Aurora, a competitor that launched a commercial driverless service earlier this year. The company later added a human observer in the truck cab several weeks later.
“We can drive in generalized surface streets across right now in Texas, and you will be able to see us across the entire U.S. over the next few years as well,” said Urtasun, who previously served as chief scientist at Uber ATG before launching Waabi in 2021.
Waabi rival Aurora has a similar deal with Volvo, and the two companies unveiled a self-driving truck in May 2024. Aurora launched a commercial service, which has a human observer on board, earlier this year on a route between Dallas and Houston and Tuesday announced it was expanding to El Paso. Waabi is using the same truck, but it features Waabi’s tech, including its sensor suite, compute, and the Waabi Driver software.
Waabi’s self-driving system called the Waabi Driver is an end-to-end AI model that enables the truck to scale autonomous driving across different geographies, including highways and general surface streets. Waabi says this enables commercial operations that are scalable, meet the needs of customers, and work within existing logistics operations.
“Volvo VNL has been built from the ground up for the redundancies so that you can remove the human driver and you can build a local, safe product,” Urtasun said. “Our sensor poles are super lightweight, it’s very easy to integrate at the factory line.”
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Waabi’s partnership with Volvo builds on the automaker’s investment into the startup in 2023 via its venture arm, Volvo Group Venture Capital. Volvo participated in Waabi’s $200 million Series B in 2024.
Clarification: Aurora did not initially launch its commercial service with a human observer in the cab.
