Waabi ties up with Volvo to roll out self-driving trucks

By Akash Sriram

(Reuters) - Self-driving technology company Waabi said on Tuesday it has partnered with truckmaker Volvo's driverless systems unit to develop and deploy big rigs that drive themselves.

Fleets and truck manufacturers have been looking towards self-driving vehicle technologies to reduce costs and increase the time a truck can be on the road amid a driver shortage.

Waabi, which is backed by Nvidia and Uber, and Volvo Autonomous Solutions will integrate the startup's virtual driver system, sensors and computers into the Volvo VNL Autonomous truck that will be made at the Swedish giant's New River Valley factory in Dublin, Virginia.

"The technology we are building is technology that can be actually used for many verticals, trucking being one. But you will see Waabi in the future doing robotaxis, humanoid robots, et cetera," Waabi's founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun told Reuters.

The startup uses a digital simulator system called Waabi World for most of its training, testing and validation, enabling the company to launch commercial pilots in Texas, with a human driver, within four years through a partnership with Uber Freight.

In contrast, Tesla uses a vision-only approach and imitation learning for its Full Self-Driving advanced driver assistance system, which learns from humans driving on the road and requires the analysis of millions of real-world driving situations.

Waabi said its deal with Volvo was not exclusive and is looking to integrate its technology with trucks made by other manufacturers.

"We selected trucking as the first use case because, you know, the market is really ripe for this solution," Urtasun said.

Volvo Group's venture capital arm became a strategic investor in Waabi in 2023 and also participated in the startup's $200 million Series B fundraising round last year. Waabi counts Khosla Ventures and Porsche Automobil Holding as investors.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)