Purpose designed and built for autonomy; the
fully redundant truck will enable autonomous transport.
Volvo Autonomous Solutions (V.A.S.) today unveiled Volvo’s
first-ever production ready autonomous truck at the ACT Expo in Las
Vegas. The Volvo VNL Autonomous brings together Volvo’s commercial
vehicle expertise with industry-leading autonomous driving
technology from Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ: AUR). The result is a
purpose-designed and purpose-built autonomous truck that will be
the key enabler to increasing freight capacity across the United
States.
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The Volvo VNL Autonomous brings together
Volvo’s commercial vehicle expertise with industry-leading
autonomous driving technology from Aurora Innovation. Credit: Volvo
Autonomous Solutions
“We are at the forefront of a new way to transport goods,
complementing and enhancing transportation capacity, and thereby
enabling trade and societal growth,” states Nils Jaeger, President
of Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “This truck is the first of our
standardized global autonomous technology platform, which will
enable us to introduce additional models in the future, bringing
autonomy to all Volvo Group truck brands, and to other geographies
and use cases.”
The platform-based design approach will enable Volvo to use its
in-house developed virtual driver for trucks and machines working
within confined applications and partner virtual driving
technologies for on-highway trucking applications.
Guided by Safety with Robust Redundancy
Volvo Autonomous Solutions is dedicated to tackling the
transportation industry’s capacity constraints through safe,
sustainable, and efficient autonomous transport solutions. True to
the Volvo DNA, every design and engineering decision for the new
Volvo VNL Autonomous has been made with safety in mind. The Volvo
VNL Autonomous therefore has redundant steering, braking,
communication, computation, power management, energy storage and
vehicle motion management systems.
“Our platform engineering approach prioritizes safety by
incorporating high-assurance redundancy systems designed to
mitigate potential emergency situations,” said Shahrukh Kazmi,
Chief Product Officer at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “We built the
Volvo VNL Autonomous from the ground up, integrating these
redundancy systems to ensure that every safety-critical component
is intentionally duplicated, thereby significantly enhancing both
safety and reliability.”
Cutting-edge Technology and Purpose-built for
Integration
Volvo’s and Aurora’s world-class engineering teams have worked
closely together to integrate the Volvo VNL Autonomous and the
Aurora Driver, an SAE L4 autonomous driving system. The Aurora
Driver consists of powerful AI software, dual computers,
proprietary lidar that can detect objects more than 400 meters
away, high-resolution cameras, imaging radar, and additional
sensors, enabling the Volvo VNL Autonomous to safely navigate the
world around it.
“Powered by the Aurora Driver, the new Volvo VNL Autonomous is
the realization of our shared vision,” said Sterling Anderson,
Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Aurora. “This truck
combines Aurora’s industry-leading self-driving technology with
Volvo’s best-in-class truck, designed specifically for autonomy,
making it a must-have for any transport provider that wants to
strengthen and grow their business.”
The Aurora Driver has been extensively trained and tested in
Aurora’s sophisticated virtual suite where it’s driven billions of
miles. It also has driven 1.5 million commercial miles on public
roads, where it deftly navigates end-to-end trucking routes
traversing highways, rural roadways, and surface streets day and
night and through good and bad weather.
Purpose-built for Commercial Scale
Building a viable autonomous truck at scale requires extensive
manufacturing experience and a proven procurement eco-system. The
Volvo VNL Autonomous will be assembled at Volvo’s flagship New
River Valley (NRV) plant in Dublin, Virginia. As the largest Volvo
Trucks plant in the world, NRV’s decades of high-volume production
experience combined with stringent automotive quality processes
will result in the capability to produce the Volvo VNL Autonomous
at industry demand.
Looking Ahead: Customer Adoption and Societal Impact
“The Volvo VNL Autonomous, powered by the Aurora Driver, offers
a fully integrated autonomous solution in the Hub-to-Hub segment,”
says Sasko Cuklev, Head of On-Road Solutions at Volvo Autonomous
Solutions. “Our approach reduces complexity for our customers while
allowing them to experience the benefits of an autonomous solution
with peace of mind by ensuring efficiency, safety and
reliability.”
Volvo is a company built around people and the mission of Volvo
Autonomous Solutions is no different. Improving transportation not
just for customers, but society at large, is at the core of the
work done by Volvo Autonomous Solutions. The United States has seen
driver shortages for decades and that gap is only expected to
increase. The adoption of autonomy aims at aiding the
transportation sector with additional freight capacity while
allowing drivers to focus on routes better suited to work-life
balance. The introduction of the new Volvo VNL Autonomous marks a
milestone in the implementation of autonomous transport and the
societal benefits of autonomy.
About Volvo Autonomous Solutions
The autonomous transport solution offered by Volvo Autonomous
Solutions is based on Transport as a Service (TaaS) and includes a
vehicle purpose-built for autonomous driving, a virtual driver,
required infrastructure, operations and uptime support as well as a
cloud solution that controls the transport system and manages
logistics flows. The solutions developed by Volvo Autonomous
Solutions are tailor-made for each customer’s needs and intended to
make their operations safer, productive and sustainable.
About Aurora
Aurora (Nasdaq: AUR) is delivering the benefits of self-driving
technology safely, quickly, and broadly to make transportation
safer, increasingly accessible, and more reliable and efficient
than ever before. The Aurora Driver is a self-driving system
designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling
trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles, and underpins Aurora’s
driver-as-a-service products for trucking and ride-hailing. Aurora
is working with industry leaders across the transportation
ecosystem, including Volvo Trucks, Volvo Autonomous Solutions,
Continental, FedEx, Hirschbach, Ryder, Schneider, Toyota, Uber,
Uber Freight, and Werner. To learn more, visit aurora.tech.
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING
STATEMENTS
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the United States federal securities laws.
All statements contained in this press release that do not relate
to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking
statements, including but not limited to: those statements around
Aurora’s and Volvo Autonomous Solutions’ ability to develop, bring
to market, manufacture, and scale, autonomous trucks, systems, and
related products and services; statements relating to anticipated
market demand and opportunity for, and cost efficiencies resulting
from, autonomous trucking solutions; and statements regarding the
impact of autonomous driving systems on customer operations and
social benefits. These statements are based on the current
assumptions of Aurora’s and Volvo Autonomous Solutions’ management
and are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and
unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may
cause our actual performance or achievements to be materially
different from any future performance or achievements expressed or
implied by the forward-looking statements. For factors that could
cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking
statements in this press release, please see the risks and
uncertainties identified under the heading “Risk Factors” section
of Aurora Innovation, Inc.’s (“Aurora”) Annual Report on Form 10-K
for the year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC on
February 15, 2024, its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the
quarter ended March 31, 2024, filed with the SEC on May 9, 2024,
and other documents filed by Aurora from time to time with the SEC,
which are accessible on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. All
forward-looking statements reflect our beliefs and assumptions only
as of the date of this press release. Aurora and Volvo Autonomous
Solutions undertake no obligation to update forward-looking
statements to reflect future events or circumstances.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240520692348/en/
David Reese Acting Head of Marketing & Communications, Volvo
Autonomous Solutions e-mail: david.reese@volvo.com +1 717
7247726
Rachel Chibidakis Product and Partner Comms, Aurora email:
rchibidakis@aurora.tech +1 415-314-9392
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