Self-driving truck startup Waabi shared on Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 the launch of a new autonomous truck built in collaboration with Volvo, the Volvo VNL autonomous truck.
The revelation comes eight months after the Uber- and Nvidia-backed startup announced it was working with Volvo Autonomous Solutions to build a custom truck based on Volvo’s autonomy platform using Waabi’s software stack.
Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun said on TechCrunch Disrupt’s AI stage that the company has the potential to be the first to commercialize autonomous trucks without a driver or human safety observer. The comment was a slight dig at Aurora, a competitor that launched a commercial driverless service earlier this year. The company later added a human observer to the cab of the truck several weeks later.
“We can drive on generalized surface roads right now in Texas, and you’ll be able to see us all over the US in the coming years,” said Urtasun, who previously served as chief scientist at Uber ATG before launching Waabi in 2021.
Waabi rival Aurora has a similar deal with Volvo, and the two companies unveiled an autonomous truck in May 2024. Aurora launched a commercial service, in which it has a human observer, earlier this year on a route between Dallas and Houston. On Tuesday, it announced it is expanding to El Paso. Waabi uses the same truck, but features Waabi’s technology, including the suite of sensors, computers and Waabi Driver software.
Waabi’s self-driving system called Waabi Driver is an end-to-end artificial intelligence model that allows the truck to scale autonomous driving in different geographic areas, including highways and general surface roads. Waabi says this enables commercial operations that are scalable, meet customer needs and work within existing logistics operations.
“The Volvo VNL is built from the ground up for redundancy, so you can remove the human driver and build a universal, safe, robust product,” said Urtasun. “Our sensor mounts are extremely light, very easy to integrate into the factory line.”
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Waabi’s partnership with Volvo builds on the automaker’s investment in the startup in 2023 through its venture arm, Volvo Group Venture Capital. Volvo participated in Waabi’s $200 million Series B in 2024.
Clarification: Aurora did not initially launch its commercial service with a human observer in the cabin.
