Aurora Debuts Volvo’s First Commercial Autonomous Truck for U.S. Highway Market

Through close collaboration with Volvo’s world-class engineering team, Aurora shares the first look at the autonomous Volvo VNL, powered by the Aurora driver.

Today, Aurora shared the first look at the Aurora-powered Volvo VNL—Volvo’s flagship long-haul truck, integrated with the Aurora Driver’s sensor suite. This prototype is the first of the Volvo VNL fleet to be designed to operate with the Aurora Driver and represents a significant step as Aurora and Volvo begin building commercial L4 Class 8 trucks at scale for Volvo’s North American customers.

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The first look at the autonomous Volvo VNL – powered by the Aurora driver. (Photo: Aurora)

Developing a self-driving truck with Volvo that’s both reliable and scalable

Volvo, the second-largest heavy-duty truck manufacturer in the world, builds hundreds of thousands of trucks each year and has developed trusted relationships with shippers and carriers over the course of decades. By joining forces with Volvo Autonomous Solutions, Aurora has the support of Volvo’s trucking industry stature, engineering prowess, production capacity, commercial relationships, and safety leadership to commercialize Aurora-powered Volvo trucks at scale.

Aurora is leveraging the power of the Aurora Driver Development Program to structure the engagement with Volvo and maximize the combined team’s strengths in world-class vehicle engineering, manufacturing and support, and autonomous vehicle technology development.

Moving safely and efficiently with Volvo

Safely developing vehicles powered by the Aurora Driver for wide deployment is an extremely rigorous multi-phase process. This incredibly complex process is why Aurora is collaborating with Volvo to design the VNL architecture for its Driver and why these trucks will be manufactured on Volvo’s own production line.

Volvo has led the industry in safety for nearly 100 years, and validates all vehicles against its own industry leading safety standards. Additionally, to ensure the safety of what Aurora and Volvo are building together, Aurora is rigorously adhering to the guidelines in its Safety Case Framework, which must be satisfied before the safety driver can be removed.

Over the next several months, Aurora will integrate its feature-complete hardware kit and test and validate Aurora-powered Volvo VNL trucks through its robust Virtual Testing Suite.

About Aurora

Founded in 2017 by experts in the self-driving industry, Aurora is on a mission to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. To move both people and goods, the company is building the Aurora Driver, a platform that brings together software, hardware and data services to autonomously operate passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, and heavy-duty trucks. Aurora is backed by Sequoia Capital, Baillie Gifford, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, among others, and is partnered with industry leaders including Toyota, Uber, Volvo, and PACCAR. Aurora tests its vehicles in the Bay Area, Pittsburgh, and Dallas. The company has offices in those areas as well as in Bozeman, MT; Seattle, WA; Louisville, CO; and Wixom, MI. To learn more, visit www.aurora.tech.

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This prototype is the first of the Volvo VNL fleet to be designed to operate with the Aurora Driver and represents a significant step as Aurora and Volvo begin building commercial L4 Class 8 trucks at scale for Volvo’s North American customers.