Waymo is seeking to expand its alliances, announcing a new partnership with Daimler Inc.’s truck division to begin working on self-driving trucks. The Google autonomous vehicle branch has been working with Freightliner big rigs for over a decade, according to the announcement. The alliance will mainly focus on installing Waymo’s self-driving software onto Freightliner Cascadia trucks driving on US highways. This includes laser lidar sensors, computing systems, cameras, and radars.
According to Daimler and Waymo, the level-4 robotic semi-trucks developed in the collaboration may be available to customers in the US in the next few years, however, no formal date has been set. The two companies also reportedly plan to work on autonomous commercial vehicles for distribution in Europe. The two industry leaders could shape the future of self-driving vehicles and elevate their abilities and success by combining power.
