Waabi, Uber Freight launch Dallas-to-Houston AV trucking pilot route
Uber Freight and Waabi launched a business autonomous trucking pilot route in Texas final week, with plans to supply billions of miles in autonomous hauls with service companions over the subsequent decade.
The logistics supplier and AV tech startup inked a 10-year deal for vans utilizing the Waabi Driver generative AI know-how to hold hundreds on Uber Freight’s community. The pilot route between Dallas and Houston is predicted to “rapidly increase to different key lanes in Texas and past,” in line with Waabi.
“Uber Freight has the scaled freight community and market experience wanted to effectively and safely deploy our AI-powered autonomous driving know-how at scale,” Waabi Founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun mentioned in a press release. “The distinctive resolution we’re constructing collectively will empower carriers to dynamically and successfully deploy the Waabi Driver whereas additionally unlocking important capability for shippers and driving worth all through the availability chain.”
Phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed. Its objective is to allow carriers with Waabi Driver-equipped vans to make use of Uber Freight community’s optimized routes, switch hub infrastructure and different providers, in addition to give extra shippers a method to discover autonomous trucking.
This isn’t Uber Freight’s first AV rodeo. The corporate debuted a Fort Price-to-El Paso autonomous trucking pilot route final yr, increasing a partnership with Aurora Innovation that started in 2021.
However Waabi says its AV truck tech is the primary to be constructed round a basis AI mannequin, which might robotically be taught from information and generalize its learnings to on-the-road conditions, together with these it has by no means seen earlier than.
The AV startup, which launched in 2021, presents know-how that’s “extra scalable, safer and versatile” than opponents’ “earlier era” techniques, Urtasun instructed Trucking Dive final fall. The corporate seeks to finally take away the security driver and human engineer.
Uber Freight founder and CEO Lior Ron boasted in a press release the corporate’s work with Waabi will “usher in a brand new period for our trade.”
“This thrilling partnership permits us to deliver Waabi’s revolutionary generative AI innovation to the forefront of our huge freight community, offering our shippers and carriers nationwide with the instruments wanted to embrace autonomous know-how and rework their operations safely and effectively,” Ron mentioned.
The deal additionally reunites Urtasun along with her outdated employer. Earlier than founding Waabi, the CEO labored for Uber for greater than three years, leaving as chief scientist of the Uber ATG self-driving unit in 2021, in line with LinkedIn. Uber offered the enterprise to Aurora in 2020, TechCrunch reported.
