Daimler Truck North America has begun delivering its latest highway trucks to the autonomous testing fleet of Torc Robotics, a subsidiary of Daimler Truck. These trucks are based on the fifth-generation Freightliner Cascadia, introduced last year. The autonomous-ready version is equipped with safety features for braking and steering and is intended for series production.
Joanna Buttler, head of the autonomous technology group at Daimler Truck, stated, “Delivering the latest iteration of our autonomous-ready vehicle platform, including production-intent autonomy hardware, to Torc marks a significant milestone for Daimler Truck toward series maturity and scaling.”
To enable SAE Level 4 autonomous driving, Daimler has designed and built redundancy into the Freightliner Cascadia platform for safety-critical systems. With over 1,500 engineering requirements translated into features, and a second set of electronically controlled systems such as an integrated power network, the truck aims to set an industry standard for autonomous systems integration.
The new generation of the Class 8 truck features the Detroit Assurance Suite of Safety Systems, an all-new intelligent braking control system and dual-stage intelligent LED headlights. The newest version of Freightliner’s on-highway truck is more than 35% more fuel efficient than the first model, introduced in 2007. Daimler also installs essential computer and sensor kits during the vehicle production process, which allows Torc Robotics to integrate a virtual driver upon delivery.
In addition to existing test routes in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona, these trucks will be tested in autonomous mode on a new lane in Texas between Laredo and Dallas, mainly on I-35. This addition comes after Torc announced a leasing agreement for an autonomous hub in the Dallas Fort Worth area. This hub will be the main base for autonomous testing, customer freight pilots and future commercialization.
Peter Vaughan Schmidt, CEO of Torc, said, “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. 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.”
Daimler Truck and Torc aim to enter the US market with SAE Level 4 autonomous trucks by 2027. In this application, the autonomous driving system takes over the dynamic driving task between two freight hubs.
In related news, Nippon Steel Corporation, Japan’s largest steelmaker and one of the world’s leading steel manufacturers, and Tier IV, which offers open-source software for autonomous driving, recently announced they are working together to automate steel transportation with heavy-duty autonomous vehicles, aiming to deploy the technology at the steelmaker’s Nagoya plant in fiscal year 2025. Click here to read the full story.