Daimler Trucks and Waymo develop autonomous Level 4 trucks

The commercial vehicle manufacturer Daimler Trucks and Google's autonomous driving subsidiary Waymo have entered into an extensive and global strategic partnership in autonomous driving (SAE Level 4). As the start of their cooperation, the partners plan to combine Waymo's leading autonomous driving technology with a specially developed version of Daimler's Freightliner Cascadia truck model for this use. The Google subsidiary has over ten years of experience in developing its "world's most experienced driver": The Waymo system has driven over 20 million miles (about 32 million kilometers) on public roads in 25 cities in the USA and 15 billion miles (about 24 billion kilometers) in simulations, justifying Daimler's step towards cooperation. The company has already been cooperating with the US automation specialist Torc for several years and had recently intensified this cooperation, which also targets Level 4 trucks link.

Daimler Trucks North America, the US market leader in commercial vehicles and parent company of the Freightliner brand, brings its experience in developing state-of-the-art heavy trucks into the partnership. The partners believe that highly automated trucks can improve both road safety and the productivity of fleet customers. The autonomous Freightliner Cascadia, equipped with the Waymo Driver, is expected to be available in the USA in the coming years. The companies also plan to explore expanding their activities to additional markets and vehicle brands in the foreseeable future.

"With our strategic partnership with Waymo, a leading company in autonomous driving, we are now taking another important step," said Martin Daum, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck AG and Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG.

The cooperation is part of Daimler Trucks' dual strategy in autonomous driving, and they are working with two strong partners to provide their customers with the best integrated autonomous Level 4 solutions, Daum continued.

"We highly value the technological know-how of Daimler experts as well as the broad global truck portfolio. We look forward to scaling the Waymo Driver with our new partner to improve road safety and logistics efficiency on the world's roads," added John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo.