Waabi’s self-guiding truck manufacturer has hired Autonomous Industry Vehicle and Uber Freight CEO Lior Ron to proceed as a leader, as the boot seems to escalate his commercial activities before the scheduled traffic of the trucks.
Rebecca Tinucci, who previously spent six years of building the Tesla charging network before the automotive industry, dazzling last year’s billing personnel, will take over as head of Uber Freight. Ron will remain as president of Uber Freight.
“[Ron] It will lead the market strategy, the expansion of basic corporate relationships and will really bring Waabi from the phase we are in the commercialization of a scale, “said Raquel Urtasun, the founder and CEO of Waabi.
Urtasun and Ron go back: Ron previously set up OTTO trucks self-driving, which Uber acquired in 2016. He was coated with Urtasun in Uber, where the latter was a leader, leading the company’s self-healing from 2017 to 2021.
Uber Freight is a digital market that connects loaders with carriers and the company aims to integrate truck self-guiding with the platform through corporate relationships with newly established companies such as Aurora Innovation and Waabi. Uber’s collaboration with Waabi is not affected by Ron’s departure, he said.
While working at Uber Freight, Ron says, he regularly met with the main supply chain officers and the big carriers who said he “could not wait” for trucks.
“If the most aggressive thing to do in the next decade is autonomy and if the timetable is right, then for me it is really about integrating forces with who I think it is more positioned to lead the transformation,” he added.
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Urtasun claims that Waabi’s “Ai-First” approach to escalating autonomy allowed her to do more with less resources and less time than competitors. Since it is a capital intensity industry that has seen many promising new businesses, such as Tusimple and Embark, Crash and Burn, efficiency can be an important advantage.
Since it was founded in 2021, Waabi has increased a total of $ 287.7 million, most of which comes from a series of $ 200 million in 2024. Urtasun claims that the company does not need to increase more to reach the next phase.
The leading competitor is Aurora, which this year launched its first US -free truck truck route and has raised almost $ 3.46 billion through a combination of business capital and public registration.
Waabi has quickly started commercial pilots because it is doing most of the educational, tests and validation at Waabi World, the closed loop simulator that essentially tests self-guidance software and teaches it in real time. More recently, Waabi took its simulator into the test part, overlapping virtual environments to real world driving conditions to simulate scenarios such as accidents and construction zones without the real risk, according to Urtasun.
“At the beginning of the year, we reached the full feature, which basically means we have all the things we need to remove the driver and [are focused] About the final improvement and performance validation, “Urtasun said.” We are on the right track to launch without a guide by the end of the year, which is the beginning of commercialization. “
The start plans to launch in Texas, which has become the US frequent freight chapter, but has not yet revealed which routes will work over or with which the launch partners. The start cooperates with Volvo’s autonomous solutions for the development and development of custom AVS.
“Waabi will lead technology and escalate autonomy faster than ever,” Ron said, adding that he is excited about the prospect of integrating technology into customer functions. Part of this is a feature that would allow Waabi trucks to drive directly to customer warehouses, avoiding the need to build terminals for a hybrid regulation.
“We will create a solution ready for a commercial solution that can really meet them,” Ron said.
