This week, Volvo Trucks shared a video to introduce the company’s first commercial autonomous truck for the U.S. market.
The video released on September 28 gives viewers a closer look at the company’s flagship VNL model equipped with self driving tech through a partnership with tech company Aurora.
Aurora says that they hope to leverage Volvo’s manufacturing prowess to bring trucks with Level 4 automation to the U.S. market at scale. Level 4 automation means that human assistance is not required to complete driving tasks.
“This prototype is the first of the Volvo VNL fleet to be designed to operate with the Aurora Driver, and represents a significant step as we begin building commercial L4 Class 8 trucks at scale for Volvo’s North American customers … we have the support of Volvo’s trucking industry stature, engineering prowess, production capacity, commercial relationships, and safety leadership to commercialize Aurora-powered Volvo trucks at scale,” Aurora said in a blog post earlier this month.
“Volvo Autonomous Solutions is proud to take our first, major steps toward the autonomous Volvo VNL in North America,” said Nils Jaeger, president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “Our long-standing customer base and their priorities are at the forefront of our path forward in shaping autonomous trucking. We strongly believe in a future in which safe, sustainable, efficient transport solutions are essential for any society to prosper, and autonomous commercial trucking is an important piece of that transformation.”
In July 2021, Aurora announced a partnership with Volvo and PACCAR in a push to be the first to bring highly automated Class 8 trucks to market.