Daimler Trucks and Waymo Launch Extensive Partnership

Daimler Trucks AG and Waymo have entered into an extensive, globally oriented strategic partnership for autonomous driving (SAE Level 4). As a kickoff for the collaboration, the partners are combining Waymo’s leading technology in autonomous driving with a variant of Daimler’s Freightliner Cascadia truck model specifically developed for this application.

(Stuttgart / Mountain View) – Waymo has over ten years of experience in developing its “world’s most experienced driver”: The Waymo system has driven over 20 million miles (about 32 million kilometers) on public roads across 25 cities in the U.S. and 15 billion miles (about 24 billion kilometers) in simulations. Daimler Trucks North America, the U.S. market leader in commercial vehicles and parent company of the Freightliner brand, brings its experience in developing state-of-the-art heavy trucks to the partnership.

Improving Fleet Customer Productivity

Waymo and Daimler Trucks aim to enhance both traffic safety and the productivity of fleet customers with highly automated trucks. The autonomous Freightliner Cascadia equipped with the Waymo Driver is expected to be available in the U.S. in the coming years. Waymo and Daimler Trucks also plan to explore expanding activities to additional markets and vehicle brands in the foreseeable future.

Martin Daum, Chairman of the Board of Daimler Truck AG and Member of the Board of Daimler AG:

“As an industry leader, Daimler Trucks is a pioneer in automated trucks. In recent years, we have already made significant progress on our path to series production of highly automated trucks. With our strategic partnership with Waymo as a leading company in autonomous driving, we are now taking another important step. The cooperation is part of Daimler Trucks’ dual strategy for autonomous driving: We are working with two strong partners to provide our customers with the best-integrated autonomous Level 4 solutions possible.”Roger Nielsen, Board Member of Daimler Truck AG, President and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America LLC: “The increasing road freight transport and the demands of our fleet customers for highly automated trucks are the central drivers of our innovation efforts. We want to further improve safety on the roads with our technologies and enable our customers to achieve higher productivity. The collaboration with Waymo puts us in a unique position to offer our fleet customers the choice between the best solutions for their individual requirements.”

John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo:

“We greatly value the technological expertise of Daimler’s experts as well as the broad global truck portfolio. We look forward to scaling the Waymo Driver together with our new partner to improve traffic safety and logistics efficiency on the roads of the world.”

About Waymo:

Waymo, as a company for autonomous driving, aims to safely and easily transport people and goods to their destinations. Since its inception as a Google project for self-driving cars in 2009, Waymo has focused on developing the “world’s most experienced driver.” The goal is to improve access to mobility worldwide while saving thousands of lives that are currently still victims of traffic accidents. The Waymo Driver forms the basis for Waymo One, the world’s first fully driverless ride-hailing service, as well as Waymo Via, the truck and local delivery service. To date, Waymo has autonomously driven over 20 million miles on public roads in 25 U.S. cities and over 15 billion miles in simulations. More at: www.waymo.com

About Daimler Trucks & Buses:

Daimler Trucks & Buses is one of the largest global manufacturers of commercial vehicles, with over 35 main locations around the world and approximately 100,000 employees. The company unites seven vehicle brands under one roof: Mercedes-Benz (light, medium, and heavy trucks as well as city, intercity, and coach buses) and Setra (intercity, long-distance, and premium coach buses) as European traditional brands, the U.S. brands Freightliner Trucks (trucks in weight classes 5 to 8 for a wide range of commercial vehicle applications), Western Star (heavy trucks for special and long-haul transport), and Thomas Built Buses (light to medium buses), as well as the Asian brands BharatBenz based in Chennai/India (trucks in weight classes from 9 to 55 tons, as well as medium and heavy buses) and FUSO headquartered in Japan (trucks and buses for Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Latin America). This allows Daimler Trucks & Buses to offer its customers around the globe a wide portfolio of commercial vehicles, from minibuses to heavy-duty trucks for special transport – in short: products and solutions for all who move the world. More than 120 years ago, Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz laid the foundation for the modern transport industry. Over the decades, the truck and bus divisions of Daimler have continuously set standards for the entire transport industry – in safety, fuel efficiency, and comfort for drivers and passengers. Now it is time for another evolutionary step: emission-free, automated, and connected driving. Daimler Trucks & Buses is working to bring these important technologies to series production across brands, divisions, and regions. This aims to bring the company significantly closer to its vision of CO2-neutral transport and accident-free driving and contribute to sustainability in global goods and passenger transport. In 2019, approximately half a million trucks and buses were delivered. In 2019, the revenue for the individual business units was 40.2 billion euros for Daimler Trucks, while Daimler Buses generated 4.7 billion euros. The EBIT was 2.5 billion euros for Daimler Trucks and 283 million euros for Daimler Buses.www.daimler.com www.waymo.comImage: Daimler Trucks and Waymo have entered into an extensive, globally oriented strategic partnership for autonomous driving (SAE Level 4). As a kickoff for the collaboration, the partners are combining Waymo’s leading technology in autonomous driving with a variant of Daimler’s Freightliner Cascadia truck model specifically developed for this application. – © Daimler AG