Volvo Autonomous Solutions opens up shop in Texas

June 9, 2023

Chuck Robinson

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Volvo Autonomous Solutions, a part of the Swedish Volvo Group, is setting up shop in Texas to oversee its autonomous commercial truck hub-to-hub project.

The Volvo subsidiary has opened an office in Fort Worth, Texas. It is dedicated to setting up the company’s first autonomous truck freight corridors. Those corridors will run from Dallas/Fort Worth to El Paso, Texas, and from Dallas to Houston.

To prepare for commercial launch, the Volvo subsidiary already has started to haul loads with trucks using drivers for key customers to test aspects of the transport solution and establish frameworks and procedures for safe and reliable operations.

“At Volvo Autonomous Solutions we believe the path to autonomy at scale is through reducing the friction and complications around ownership and operations for customers. This is why we have taken the decision to be the single interface to our customers and take full ownership of the elements required for commercial autonomous transport,” Nils Jaeger, president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions, said in a company announcement. “With the opening of our office in Texas and start of operational activities, we are building the foundations for a transport solution that will change the way we move goods on highways.”

Volvo Autonomous Solutions offers hardware, software and services required to run autonomous transport operations as a package it calls its Autonomous Transport Solutions.

On highways, the solution is operated based on a hub-to-hub model, where autonomous trucks take on the highway portion of the driving, operating all hours of the day and night between transfer hubs. Human drivers complete local operations.

Sasko Cuklev, head of on-road solutions for the Volvo subsidiary, said in the announcement that the goal with Autonomous Transport Solutions “is to create a new source of industry capacity that will ease some of the burden of the increasing demand for freight while also enabling local drivers to shift into short-haul jobs that will keep them closer to home.”

Volvo Autonomous Solutions has formed partnerships with DHL and Uber Freight, which are part of its key customer program. The program is aimed at shippers, carriers, logistics service providers and freight brokers with whom the company will work to commercialize autonomous transport solutions.

The Volvo subsidiary also has formed a partnership with autonomous-vehicle company Aurora to integrate the Aurora Driver system with Volvo’s on-highway truck lineup.

In May, the Volvo subsidiary entered into collaboration with digital freight network digital freight network Convoy. Convoy will have priority access to autonomous freight capacity on initial lanes that will run on select routes in Texas.

The Volvo Group is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden. It manufactures trucks, buses, construction equipment, and power solutions for marine and industrial applications.

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