Self-driving truck startup Waabi announced on Tuesday the launch of a new autonomous truck developed in partnership with Volvo, called the Volvo VNL Autonomous truck. This unveiling comes eight months after the startup, which is backed by Uber and Nvidia, revealed its partnership with Volvo Autonomous Solutions to build a custom truck. The truck is based on Volvo’s autonomy platform and uses Waabi’s software stack.
Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun stated on stage that her company has the potential to be the first to commercialize self-driving trucks without a human safety driver or observer. This comment was a subtle reference to competitor Aurora, which launched a commercial driverless service earlier this year but later added a human observer in the truck cab. Urtasun said that Waabi can currently drive on general surface streets in Texas and will expand across the entire United States over the next few years.
Waabi’s rival Aurora also has a partnership with Volvo, and the two companies unveiled a self-driving truck in May 2024. Aurora launched a commercial service with a human observer on board on a route between Dallas and Houston and has now announced an expansion to El Paso. Waabi is using the same Volvo truck model but equips it with its own technology, including its sensor suite, compute system, and the Waabi Driver software.
The Waabi Driver is an end-to-end AI model that allows the truck to scale autonomous driving across different environments, including highways and surface streets. Waabi states this enables scalable commercial operations that meet customer needs and integrate with existing logistics. Urtasun explained that the Volvo VNL was built from the ground up with redundancies that allow for the removal of the human driver, creating a safe product. She also noted that Waabi’s sensor poles are lightweight and easy to integrate on the factory line.
Waabi’s partnership with Volvo follows the automaker’s investment in the startup in 2023 through its venture arm, Volvo Group Venture Capital. Volvo also participated in Waabi’s 200 million dollar Series B funding round in 2024.
A clarification was provided that Aurora did not initially launch its commercial service with a human observer in the cab.