VOLVO

Brand presents truck without driver

While much of the automotive industry is focused on driverless cars, the handful of companies are developing autonomous or battery-powered trucks. Sweden's Volvo is the first to combine both technologies in a radical new design.The company showed off a new self-driving electric truck on Wednesday, which it said should help support the rapid growth of ecommerce and the industry-wide shortage of truck drivers. The truck has no driver's head and resembles a giant EV battery with wheels.Volvo said the truck was still under development and declined to say when it would be commercially available. It expects the truck to be deployed first in places like ports and large distribution centers and not on public roads.

"We believe there will be a driver behind the steering wheel for the foreseeable future, but we will soon see self-drive commercial vehicles in confined areas," Lars Stenqvist, Volvo chief technology officer, told a conference in Berlin.

Trucking is viewed by transport experts as a natural application for self-driving technology because of the relative predictability of highways compared to busy city streets. Several startups are working on autonomous long haul trucks including California-based companies TuSimple and Embark.Volvo calls its new truck Vera, and says its capable of pulling loads weighing up to 32 tons. In addition, the truck has a traditional hookups and can attach to any standard trailer, said Michael Karlsson, head of autonomous solutions at Volvo Trucks, after the unveiling."Vera means faith and we have faith in the future," Karlsson said, adding the vehicle has a lower operating speed than a normal truck for safety reasons.



Eric Walz and Mundoquatrorodas