Torc, a self-driving truck company owned by Daimler, has started testing its self-driving trucks on public roads in Michigan. These trucks use the latest Daimler autonomous vehicle technology, based on the Freightliner Cascadia, a big long-haul truck. This new testing is an expansion of Torc’s previous tests in Dallas-Fort Worth and Blacksburg.
The testing in Michigan is a big step for Torc in bringing self-driving trucks to the long-haul trucking industry safely. The company set up an engineering office in Ann Arbor last year, and now it's utilizing real-world data to improve its technology, making sure the trucks operate well in different environments as well as conditions.
This Michigan expansion is part of Torc’s ongoing partnership with local organizations, including the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), and Ann Arbor SPARK. Together, they aim to improve safety and innovation in the freight industry through autonomous trucks.
Torc is also hiring for software engineering, artificial intelligence, and machine learning jobs in Michigan and remotely to help with the testing and development of this technology.
Executive Statement
According to Felix Heide, Head of Artificial Intelligence at Torc, validating their hardware and software together on public roads is a critical step in the marathon toward autonomous trucking commercialization. Each new hardware generation allows them to further validate their AI inference models, strengthen their simulation accuracy, and ensure our autonomous system performs safely and reliably in real-world conditions.