Solo AVT wants to build fully driverless heavy truck platforms

The company wants to build electric, purpose-built heavy-duty truck platforms.

The platforms would be compatible with any self-driving software, so the companies could simply layer on their self-driving software and sensor suite and be off. The startup aims to address inefficiencies behind retrofitting existing human-centered trucks for self-drive.

For about five years, I did sensor integration analysis on Class 8 trucks for Waymo and worked closely with Daimler, and it became very apparent that you have this really high-tech sensor suite and artificial intelligence from the audiovisual industry.

Doorley said that there were issues like the inability to put sensors in optimal locations, inefficient power trains and compromised aerodynamics that needed a hardware and software solution that could handle advanced autonomously technology.

With its recent $7 million seed funding round led by Trucks VC with participation from Maniv Mobility and Wireframe Venture, the company will begin testing a battery-electric Class 8 truck this summer. The knowledge from the test mule will be used to inform the design and engineering of the truck. The company said that it can be done with legacy trucks.

By the end of next month, the team will be grown from eight to 18 thanks to the fresh injection of capital.

There will be no human controls on the trucking platform, like a seat or steering wheel. They will be built with a teleoperations-based system on top of the AV stack so that humans can still be involved in maneuvering around hubs or to take over if needed, Doorley said.

Einride is building an electric solution for the trucking industry. The company just hired its first Pod Operator, a trained and licensed truck driver, to remotely monitor operations of Einride's Pods, and last year began testing some of its tech and electric trucks in the U.S.

Traditional Original Equipment Manufacturers often begin with retrofitting trucks for testing, but have evolved into creating purpose-built trucks together, as exemplified by the partnerships with Waymo Via, Aurora and TuSimple. Daimler Truck is developing a unique version of its Freightliner Cascadia for the Waymo Driver. TuSimple and Aurora are working with other companies to build trucks.

These trucks will still be built with the look and feel of a Class 8 truck and will have manual controls. In states like California, where companies usually begin with drivered testing permits and can graduate to driverless, it's something of a requirement for certain companies to enable testing.

Cheng Lu, former president and CEO and current adviser to the CEO at TuSimple, said there will be certain operations that still require manual driving.

Lu said that being able to remotely control an autonomously driving truck wouldn't change how TuSimple thinks about it.

Waymo said that in the near term, the company thinks it’s important to have a cab with traditional controls so that human drivers can move the vehicle if needed, like for maintenance or during testing.

There could be interesting design changes we explore, according to a Waymo spokesman.

If a control fails, redundant systems need to take over. The system needs to be plugged into sensory inputs and controls. It's a complex task, one that AV companies like Aurora have turned to legacy OEMs for because they trust them to manufacture trucks that are safe and can be scaled, but also because there hasn't been much else on.

“Even though Waymo, TuSimple, etc. are working with OEMs, the trucks they’re putting the autonomous equipment on are not designed or optimized for autonomy and, therefore, even though it’s possible to install autonomous equipment, it’s fundamentally compromised from a sensor integration and position perspective,” said Doorley. “In addition, the old diesel truck platforms are not fully redundant, which is required for autonomy and makes it extremely hard to robustly install an autonomous system. Our platform is designed from the onset for autonomy and is therefore fully redundant. Lastly, integrating autonomy onto human-driven diesel trucks is expensive and not scalable.”

A Series A raise is planned for the coming weeks, as well as the testing of its mule this year. Doorley wouldn't say how much the company is hoping to raise, but he did say the number would be significant and that the company is looking for strategic investors that can help move the business forward. And no wonder.

Although there is a strong software element involved in the business, it is also an electric vehicle company. Even if you have all the venture capital money you could possibly spend, sticking to production goals is difficult in this economy.

Doorley said passenger vehicles and pickup trucks already require more parts, tooling and volume than a Class 8 truck would. There isn't a complex body shape to stamp and there isn't an interior to design for the vehicles.

There are lower capacity and lower volume requirements for these, and we're a couple of years away.