Waabi presents an autonomous truck manufactured in collaboration with Volvo

Autonomous truck startup Waabi shared on Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt the launch of a new autonomous truck made in partnership with Volvo, the Volvo VNL autonomous truck.

The presentation comes eight months since the Uber and Nvidia-backed startup announced it would partner with Volvo Automobiles Solutions to build a custom truck based on Volvo’s autonomy platform using Waabi’s software stack.

Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun said at TechCrunch Disrupt’s AI stage that the company has the potential to be the first to commercialize autonomous trucks without a human driver or safety observer. The comment was a slight dig at Aurora, a competitor that launched a commercial driverless service with a human observer in the truck cab.

“We can drive on widespread surface streets right now in Texas, and you’ll also be able to see us across the United States for years to come,” said Urtasun, who previously served as chief scientist at Uber ATG before launching Waabi in 2021.

Waabi rival Aurora has a similar deal with Volvo, and the two companies unveiled an autonomous truck in May 2024. Aurora launched a commercial service, which has a human observer on board, earlier this year on a route between Dallas and Houston and on Tuesday announced it would expand to El Paso. Waabi is using the same truck, but it features Waabi technology, including its suite of sensors, computing, and Waabi Driver software.

Waabi’s autonomous driving system, called Waabi Driver, is an end-to-end artificial intelligence model that allows the truck to scale autonomous driving across different geographies, including highways and general surface streets. Waabi says this enables business operations that are scalable, meet customer needs and work within existing logistics operations.

“Volvo VNL has been built from the ground up for redundancies, so that the human driver can be eliminated and a local and safe product can be built,” Urtasun said. “Our sensor posts are super lightweight and it’s very easy to integrate into the factory line.”

Waabi’s partnership with Volvo builds on the automaker’s investment in the startup in 2023 through its venture arm, Volvo Group Venture Capital. Volvo participated in the $200 million Waabi Series B in 2024.