Traton Group has announced that its brands – Scania, MAN and International have completed its initial driverless truck collaboration phase with Plus, a generative AI-based autonomous driving software company, which has released the Beta 5.0 version of its Level 4 software, SuperDrive, and that it is now operational in Traton autonomous trucks across the United States and Europe.
Traton said that after months of public road testing in Europe and North America, the companies have also mapped hub-to-hub routes for phased commercial deployment of the autonomous trucks in the US state of Texas.
The company has said that Texas has been utilised as that start of the autonomous hub-to-hub transport operations due to the high number of major trucking routes that snake throughout the state. In addition Traton and Plus have said they plan to expand the routes to neighbouring states before covering the country and continuing international rollout.
Shawn Kerrigan, the COO and co-founder of Plus said the milestone is significant due to its testing on two continents with vastly different driving conditions.
“Today’s milestone exemplifies Plus’s ability to quickly deliver a safe and scalable AI-centric autonomous driving system that can already operate on two continents for Traton Group,” Kerrigan said.
“The next phase of fleet pilots will help fleets gain a practical understanding of how to integrate our autonomous trucks into their operations, and the safety and efficiency these trucks bring.”
Plus says its software with Traton Group, has been developed with global deployment in mind and that the trucks were tested in a variety of conditions from snow in Sweden to extreme heat in Texas.
The company claims that the software also dynamically adjusts to the behaviour differences of road users and diverse driving conditions on both continents.
Plus says that although these specific Traton tests took place in the United States and Europe, it is also conducting operations in Australia and has a host of worldwide partners including DSV, Hyundai, Iveco and Transurban.
Peter Hafmar, the vice president and head of autonomous solutions at Scania led the coordination of Autonomous Solutions for Traton Group and said said Traton Group is excited to move onto the software’s next phase of Texas trials.
“Deploying a global product requires seamless integration across people and technology, and we’re proud of the progress we’ve made in our Level 4 autonomous trucking solutions,,” Hafmar said.
“We’re excited to move to the next phase of our collaboration, which will include continued technology development in addition to fleet trials in Texas in the coming months,” he said
Plus’s SuperDrive software was recently named winner of the 2024 Reuters Automotive D.R.I.V.E Honours. The judging panel labelled the technology as a “game changer for real-life autonomy use cases”.
