The Volvo VNL Autonomous – Proving the Way Forward

Purpose designed and built for autonomy; the fully redundant truck will enable autonomous transport.

GREENSBORO, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Volvo Autonomous Solutions (V.A.S.) today unveiled Volvo’s first-ever production ready autonomous truck at the ACT Expo in Las Vegas. The Volvo VNL Autonomous brings together Volvo’s commercial vehicle expertise with industry-leading autonomous driving technology from Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ: AUR). The result is a purpose-designed and purpose-built autonomous truck that will be the key enabler to increasing freight capacity across the United States.

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The Volvo VNL Autonomous brings together Volvo’s commercial vehicle expertise with industry-leading autonomous driving technology from Aurora Innovation. Credit: Volvo Autonomous Solutions

“We are at the forefront of a new way to transport goods, complementing and enhancing transportation capacity, and thereby enabling trade and societal growth,” states Nils Jaeger, President of Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “This truck is the first of our standardized global autonomous technology platform, which will enable us to introduce additional models in the future, bringing autonomy to all Volvo Group truck brands, and to other geographies and use cases.”

The platform-based design approach will enable Volvo to use its in-house developed virtual driver for trucks and machines working within confined applications and partner virtual driving technologies for on-highway trucking applications.

Guided by Safety with Robust Redundancy

Volvo Autonomous Solutions is dedicated to tackling the transportation industry’s capacity constraints through safe, sustainable, and efficient autonomous transport solutions. True to the Volvo DNA, every design and engineering decision for the new Volvo VNL Autonomous has been made with safety in mind. The Volvo VNL Autonomous therefore has redundant steering, braking, communication, computation, power management, energy storage and vehicle motion management systems.

“Our platform engineering approach prioritizes safety by incorporating high-assurance redundancy systems designed to mitigate potential emergency situations,” said Shahrukh Kazmi, Chief Product Officer at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “We built the Volvo VNL Autonomous from the ground up, integrating these redundancy systems to ensure that every safety-critical component is intentionally duplicated, thereby significantly enhancing both safety and reliability.”

Cutting-edge Technology and Purpose-built for Integration

Volvo’s and Aurora’s world-class engineering teams have worked closely together to integrate the Volvo VNL Autonomous and the Aurora Driver, an SAE L4 autonomous driving system. The Aurora Driver consists of powerful AI software, dual computers, proprietary lidar that can detect objects more than 400 meters away, high-resolution cameras, imaging radar, and additional sensors, enabling the Volvo VNL Autonomous to safely navigate the world around it.

“Powered by the Aurora Driver, the new Volvo VNL Autonomous is the realization of our shared vision,” said Sterling Anderson, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Aurora. “This truck combines Aurora’s industry-leading self-driving technology with Volvo’s best-in-class truck, designed specifically for autonomy, making it a must-have for any transport provider that wants to strengthen and grow their business.”

The Aurora Driver has been extensively trained and tested in Aurora’s sophisticated virtual suite where it’s driven billions of miles. It also has driven 1.5 million commercial miles on public roads, where it deftly navigates end-to-end trucking routes traversing highways, rural roadways, and surface streets day and night and through good and bad weather.

Purpose-built for Commercial Scale

Building a viable autonomous truck at scale requires extensive manufacturing experience and a proven procurement eco-system. The Volvo VNL Autonomous will be assembled at Volvo’s flagship New River Valley (NRV) plant in Dublin, Virginia. As the largest Volvo Trucks plant in the world, NRV’s decades of high-volume production experience combined with stringent automotive quality processes will result in the capability to produce the Volvo VNL Autonomous at industry demand.

Looking Ahead: Customer Adoption and Societal Impact

“The Volvo VNL Autonomous, powered by the Aurora Driver, offers a fully integrated autonomous solution in the Hub-to-Hub segment,” says Sasko Cuklev, Head of On-Road Solutions at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “Our approach reduces complexity for our customers while allowing them to experience the benefits of an autonomous solution with peace of mind by ensuring efficiency, safety and reliability.”

Volvo is a company built around people and the mission of Volvo Autonomous Solutions is no different. Improving transportation not just for customers, but society at large, is at the core of the work done by Volvo Autonomous Solutions. The United States has seen driver shortages for decades and that gap is only expected to increase. The adoption of autonomy aims at aiding the transportation sector with additional freight capacity while allowing drivers to focus on routes better suited to work-life balance. The introduction of the new Volvo VNL Autonomous marks a milestone in the implementation of autonomous transport and the societal benefits of autonomy.

About Volvo Autonomous Solutions

The autonomous transport solution offered by Volvo Autonomous Solutions is based on Transport as a Service (TaaS) and includes a vehicle purpose-built for autonomous driving, a virtual driver, required infrastructure, operations and uptime support as well as a cloud solution that controls the transport system and manages logistics flows. The solutions developed by Volvo Autonomous Solutions are tailor-made for each customer’s needs and intended to make their operations safer, productive and sustainable.

About Aurora

Aurora (Nasdaq: AUR) is delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly to make transportation safer, increasingly accessible, and more reliable and efficient than ever before. The Aurora Driver is a self-driving system designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles, and underpins Aurora’s driver-as-a-service products for trucking and ride-hailing. Aurora is working with industry leaders across the transportation ecosystem, including Volvo Trucks, Volvo Autonomous Solutions, Continental, FedEx, Hirschbach, Ryder, Schneider, Toyota, Uber, Uber Freight, and Werner. To learn more, visit aurora.tech.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States federal securities laws. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: those statements around Aurora’s and Volvo Autonomous Solutions’ ability to develop, bring to market, manufacture, and scale, autonomous trucks, systems, and related products and services; statements relating to anticipated market demand and opportunity for, and cost efficiencies resulting from, autonomous trucking solutions; and statements regarding the impact of autonomous driving systems on customer operations and social benefits. These statements are based on the current assumptions of Aurora’s and Volvo Autonomous Solutions’ management and are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual performance or achievements to be materially different from any future performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. For factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, please see the risks and uncertainties identified under the heading “Risk Factors” section of Aurora Innovation, Inc.’s (“Aurora”) Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC on February 15, 2024, its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2024, filed with the SEC on May 9, 2024, and other documents filed by Aurora from time to time with the SEC, which are accessible on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements reflect our beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this press release. Aurora and Volvo Autonomous Solutions undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240520692348/en/

David Reese
Acting Head of Marketing & Communications, Volvo Autonomous Solutions
e-mail: david.reese@volvo.com
+1 717 7247726

Rachel Chibidakis
Product and Partner Comms, Aurora
email: rchibidakis@aurora.tech
+1 415-314-9392

Source: Aurora

Released May 20, 2024