(Blacksburg, Va. – January 6, 2021) Torc Robotics will open its third U.S. location in Austin, Texas, in early 2022. The approximately 21,000-square-foot office will complement the self-driving truck firm’s Blacksburg, Virginia, headquarters and its Albuquerque, New Mexico, test center. The expansion coincides with the recent two-year anniversary of Torc joining the Daimler Truck family as an independent subsidiary.
Torc, a pioneer in commercializing self-driving vehicle technology, and Daimler Truck, the market share leader in commercial vehicles, have pledged to commercialize Level 4 autonomous trucks at scale within the decade. Level 4 vehicles can operate autonomously under certain conditions and parameters. “Trucking is the backbone of the U.S. economy, and we predict hauling freight will be the first successful commercial application of self-driving on-road vehicles,” said Michael Fleming, Torc Founder and CEO. “This is why we’re laser-focused on the freight industry, taking a pure-play approach and joining forces with the leading heavy-duty trucking manufacturer in North America.”
“We are aggressively hiring key talent in Engineering and Product Development to support our strategic growth. With Austin’s relatively low cost of living as compared to other major cities in the U.S. and high quality of life, it was the logical choice for our new facility,” said Mike Avitabile, Vice President of Engineering. “The local talent pool is impressive, and the city is also known for being innovative, collaborative, and entrepreneurial. We are confident that our future Austin Torc’rs will share our passion for this technology and mission of Saving Lives.”
Along with the deep talent pool, Avitabile said that Austin was strategically selected due to its location along the Southwest shipping corridor, which is a key area for long-haul freight travel in the U.S. While the Texas facility will host mainly software development teams, Torc also plans to utilize the area to expand autonomous test truck development.
In addition to testing in other regions, Torc manages a fully operational test facility in Albuquerque, running multiple routes and shifts each day on New Mexico highways. This past year, Torc expanded on-road testing in Texas. Additional routes are planned, strategically based on major freight haulage lanes.
The expansion into Austin is part of Torc’s continued, steady growth since Daimler Truck acquired a majority share two years ago. Torc has more than tripled in size and continues to grow. In 2020, Torc expanded its footprint in Blacksburg adding nearly 16,000 square feet to its headquarters, and in 2021 the company added 28,000 square feet of office space for its workforce in Blacksburg’s Corporate Research Center.
“With self-driving trucks, we are solving one of the most challenging engineering feats of our generation,” Fleming said. To support this need, the Austin office will primarily serve as another Product Development center for Torc and will employ engineering talent across the autonomy, systems, and infrastructure teams, as well as provide opportunities within product management. Torc has also been recruiting heavily for its growing engineering team in Blacksburg.
To learn more about employment opportunities at Torc Robotics, visit the Careers page.
Torc Robotics, headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia, is an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG, the global leader and pioneer in trucking. Founded in 2005 at the birth of the self-driving vehicle revolution, Torc has 16 years of experience in pioneering safety-critical, self-driving applications. Torc offers a complete self-driving vehicle software and integration solution and is currently focusing on commercializing self-driving trucks. “Trucking is the backbone of the U.S. economy, delivering food and products to every community in the country,” said Torc Founder Michael Fleming. “Daimler has led innovation in trucking for more than a century, from the first truck to driver assist technology. Torc is working with Daimler Truck to commercialize self-driving trucks to make our roads safer and better fulfilling our mission of saving lives.”
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, November 9, 2021: Torc Robotics, an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG and a leader in Level 4 self-driving vehicle software for heavy-duty vehicles, and Applied Intuition, a simulation and software tools provider for autonomous vehicle development, announced a multi-year strategic collaboration to address the challenges of autonomous vehicle development in order to safely commercialize Torc’s self-driving trucks for over-the-road applications.
Torc is developing a Level 4 autonomous system for long-haul trucking in the US. Under Level 4 autonomy, a vehicle is capable of performing driving functions under specified operating conditions without human intervention.
Applied Intuition offers simulation and software solutions that enable safe, cost-effective, and scalable approaches to the development of autonomous systems. Its deterministic, high-fidelity and physics-based simulation software supports virtual testing of Torc’s algorithms in US highway environments.
“At Torc, safety dictates every aspect of our development including how we test and validate our autonomous technology,” said Michael Fleming, CEO and Founder of Torc. “The Applied team has demonstrated their expertise and has equipped us with tools to accelerate the safe development of commercial trucks in a financially viable way. We’re excited to continue our collaboration with Applied to make our roads safer for society.”
The engagement between the two companies started in early 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic started. On-road testing, a critical part of autonomous vehicle system and robotic truck development, was temporarily halted to ensure the health and safety of Torc’s staff. However, the team was able to continue advancing autonomous driving capabilities in simulation without disruption. Today, Torc’s test trucks run daily routes on public roads in multiple states, and simulation continues to be a vital validation method for new autonomous software features before real-life testing.
The continuing collaboration will help Torc’s autonomous vehicles prepare for unpredictable, potentially dangerous events in the real world and will enable Torc as it scales as a global organization. Developing autonomous vehicles is a complex engineering challenge, and algorithms require comprehensive training, testing, and validation. Applied Intuition offers technology that supports multiple types of simulation and development infrastructure.
“Simulation allows our team to test new features and capabilities of the autonomous system on hundreds or thousands of different scenarios in a virtual world,” said Ben Hastings, CTO of Torc. “This means by the time the autonomous truck is on public roads, the autonomous system has already been validated in many of the scenarios we could encounter. Above that, strong simulation capabilities are a pillar on our path to commercialization. With Applied Intuition, we are developing for the long-term with a product in mind.”
The close collaboration is an important milestone to forward Torc’s goal of commercializing fully-autonomous trucks. Fleming added he is confident that the approach will be the first profitable, scalable L4 product in the autonomous trucking industry.
“We are excited to collaborate with Torc to help them bring the world’s safest autonomous commercial trucks to market”, said Qasar Younis, CEO and Co-Founder of Applied Intuition. “Torc’s world-class engineering team has adopted many of our tools’ capabilities to design a state-of-the-art development approach. There are many more opportunities to collaborate in order to successfully deploy their trucks at scale.”
Torc is developing a Level 4 autonomous system for long-haul trucking in the US.
Torc Robotics
Torc Robotics, headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia, is an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG, the global leader and pioneer in trucking. Founded in 2005 at the birth of the self-driving vehicle revolution, Torc has 16 years of experience in pioneering safety-critical, self-driving applications. Torc offers a complete self-driving vehicle software and integration solution and is currently focusing on commercializing self-driving trucks. “Trucking is the backbone of the US economy, delivering food and products to every community in the country,” said Torc CEO and Founder Michael Fleming. “Daimler has led innovation in trucking for more than a century, from the first truck to driver-assist technology. Torc is working with Daimler Truck to commercialize self-driving trucks to make our roads safer and better fulfilling our mission of saving lives.” Learn more at https://torc.ai.
Applied Intuition
As the foremost enabler of autonomous vehicle development, Applied Intuition equips engineering and product development teams with software that makes it faster, safer, and easier to bring autonomy to market. Applied’s suite of products, focused on simulation, validation, and drive data management, delivers sophisticated infrastructure built for scale. Headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Detroit, Los Angeles, Munich, Tokyo, Seoul, and Vancouver, Applied’s team consists of autonomy, software, and automotive experts from around the world. Learn more at https://applied.co.
Almost a decade and a half ago, a group of Torc’rs and Virginia Tech engineering students were gathered around a bank of screens: videos and data that would let them know if their entirely unmanned vehicle, Odin, had run off course, gotten stuck in a parking space, or successfully navigated an intersection. The group had spent years preparing to send the vehicle off on a 60-mile track full of obstacles. Once they released Odin at the starting line, they could not influence it in any way. They would have to wait and see.
Challenge Made, Challenge Accepted
The DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges are legendary in the autonomous vehicle technology industry. The races proved that autonomous vehicles were possible and could be utilized for real-world purposes. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) set up these races with a goal in mind – to save lives. At a time when the majority of U.S. service member deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan occurred during convoy operations, often because of improvised explosive devices, the technology being tested in these races could dramatically reduce injuries and loss of life.
At the time, Torc was a small company, and its employees had just graduated from college. Joined by colleagues from Virginia Tech, the group dubbed “VictorTango” worked together to retrofit sensors and software to a passenger vehicle that would enable it to tackle traffic challenges like roundabouts, intersections, and cross-traffic — all without a human behind the wheel.
Among them was the founder of Torc, Michael Fleming – who is still CEO to this day. Michael recalls, “We were definitely an underdog in the races. Other teams had more funding and access to equipment than we did. However, our team had smart people, strong partners, and a collaborative drive to win. Despite being a small startup team of engineers, our team was one of only six to cross the finish line out of a starting field of 36 vehicles. That success was the origin of Torc’s core value: Winning Team.”
Despite being a small startup team of engineers, our team was one of only six to cross the finish line out of a starting field of 36 vehicles. That success was the origin of Torc’s core value: Winning Team.
Michael Fleming, Torc CEO
Team VictorTango placed third in the DARPA Challenge and immediately began working with the Department of Defense (DoD) – creating autonomous solutions to minimize death and injury for service members. From there, Torc developed its technology for a number of industries and applications, but DARPA is widely acknowledged as the company’s launching point.
Fourteen years later, both the world and autonomous vehicle technology have changed. Torc has transitioned to a new challenge: autonomous fleet transportation and helping to provide solutions to problems like trucker shortages, massive supply chain delays, and safety on U.S. highways.
Reflecting on DARPA’s Legacy
Several members of the original VictorTango team are still at Torc today. Through the years, they have continued to develop their skills and carried on the lessons learned from the DARPA challenges.
“The most impactful part of the DARPA Urban Challenge for me was the strong focus, drive, and camaraderie of our team. Our team had been working day and night for months on end to get us to this point. Even though exhaustion or other stress may have been expected by someone observing from the outside, our team’s creativity and focus were as sharp as ever all the way to the starting flag. And finally, once Odin passed the finish line, the checkered flag was waved, and we honked the horn twice. The full team collectively took a huge sigh of relief and celebrated not just our end accomplishment but the journey we took to get there. This memory, and many similar ones that followed, immediately come to mind when I think about Torc’s winning team identity.”
– David Van Covern
“The most important aspect of the DARPA Urban Challenge for me was seeing what a dedicated team of Torc employees, Virginia Tech grad, and undergrad students could accomplish when our vehicle crossed the finish line. The Urban Challenge was a race against limited development time and resources to be ready for the event date, and the team did a great job of working together to focus on the key challenges to put a self-driving vehicle on the road.”
– Andrew Bacha
“We were fairly confident, but also going against many big names in the robotics industry and some teams that had a lot more resources than us. We were prepared and knew we could handle the required functionality, but there were also many unknowns. It was a new environment that would have more traffic, some of which included other robotic competitors. It was kind of like sending your child out in the world and then waiting to see what was going to happen. Did we prepare them enough? Do they have the right tools to handle whatever they might see out in the world?”
– Cheryl Bauman
Continuing the Challenge
Although Torc has since grown from a small team in Blacksburg, VA to a global workforce with multiple locations, the team’s success at the DARPA Urban Challenge continues to have a dramatic impact on how we approach the development and commercialization of our autonomous freight trucks. The following lessons learned continue to be pillars of Torc’s development.
Purpose-driven development
The Urban Challenge was an attempt to pull autonomous vehicle development from the world of academia to tackle real-world challenges. It worked. Torc approached subsequent projects by developing business cases that catered to specific industry needs. Over the years, Torc has successfully developed an array of autonomous technology applications that solve real-world problems while remaining committed to its mission of saving lives.
Keeping it Simple
Torc is tackling the complexities of innovating the freight network by solving the most straightforward challenges first. The team learned this from the DARPA challenges and the subsequent work with the DoD and Caterpillar.
Torc currently takes a pure-play approach to commercializing self-driving trucks. Torc is singularly focused on one OEM (Daimler), one application (long-haul freight), and one region (U.S.). To start, Torc is establishing lanes in the Southwest corridor of the U.S. that will be used specifically for long-haul trucking applications. This approach allows the team to create a solution for the use-cases with the most need and opportunity, then scale more broadly.
Strong Partnerships
“We work with the subject matter experts in each of their respective fields to get a well-rounded product. We’ve found success in creating technology based on customer needs. Now, we’re working with Daimler Truck, the number one manufacturer of semi-trucks, to complement our self-driving system and tapping into their century of expertise in the trucking industry as a catalyst for smart product development.”
– Ben Hastings, Chief Technology Officer
Driven by a Vision
The DARPA Urban Challenge may be in the rearview mirror, but you can still see its influence on the work ethic, values, and approach that Torc’rs continue to uphold today. Torc’s mission is still saving lives, and its goal with autonomous trucking is to help make roads safer and create a better quality of life. The team is still made up of diverse people driven by a shared desire to push technology further. Its core values of Hungry, Humble, and People Smart helped it succeed at the DARPA Urban Challenge, and they continue to guide Torc’s winning team to learn together, collaborate, and be open-minded. And it all began at DARPA with a group of visionaries who challenged themselves to make their engineering dreams a reality.
(Blacksburg, Va., USA / Portland, Or., USA/ Stuttgart, Germany — September 29, 2021) Torc Robotics and Daimler Truck kick off their third year of partnership poised to commercialize the first scalable, profitable Level 4 autonomous truck that will help fleets improve their operations while bolstering the backbone of the U.S. economy. Torc is currently testing the Level 4 trucks on public roads in Virginia, New Mexico, and Texas, with continued route expansion in the works.
The two companies are pursuing a focused, safety-oriented approach to commercial market that also seeks to build trust among fleets and the drivers of vehicles who will share the road.
Introducing a world-changing technology into an existing infrastructure, where human drivers will share the road with automated trucks, requires credibility and responsibility, according to Dr. Peter Vaughan Schmidt, Head of Daimler Truck’s Autonomous Technology Group. “As the inventor of the truck, Daimler Truck has many decades of experience in testing and validation of commercial vehicles. Nevertheless, to develop a safe autonomous level 4 truck remains a complex task and resembles a marathon, not a sprint. Two years together with Torc Robotics, we have accomplished a lot, collaboratively pursuing a common goal of leading the logistics sector into the future and making road traffic safer for society. I am convinced that we are optimally positioned as a company and together with Torc we have the right partner at our side to achieve our goals.”
Torc founder Michael Fleming described how Torc’s pure-play approach will generate trust among all parties. “We are concentrating on one OEM truck platform (Daimler Trucks North America’s Freightliner Cascadia), one business case (long-haul trucking), and one environment (U.S. interstate highways). Commercializing self-driving trucks is a very complex endeavor and we are first solving the least complex use case, then expanding our product reach as the technical capabilities are proven. I am absolutely convinced that Torc will be the first company to a profitable scalable product in the autonomous truck space,” Fleming said. “We move to the next level of complexity when we have proven our program,” he said.
Expanded testing
Daimler Truck and Torc formed the first strategic alliance between an autonomous vehicle technology firm and a truck original equipment manufacturer (OEM) when Daimler invested in a majority share in Torc in August 2019. Torc operates as an independent subsidiary and serves as the lead for autonomous system development, innovation, and testing with Daimler Truck’s internal self-driving truck efforts.
In addition to testing in other regions, Torc manages a fully operational test facility in Albuquerque, N.M., running multiple routes and shifts each day. This past year, Torc expanded on-road testing in the Southwest into Texas. Additional routes are planned, strategically based on major freight haulage.
Best-in-class partnerships
Meanwhile, Torc and Daimler Truck are building strong partnerships with other technology-forward companies. “Part of our pure-play approach is to do what we do best and work with others who bring best-in-class solutions. This helps us accelerate our development,” Fleming said. This past year, Daimler announced a strategic partnership with Luminar for collaborative development of long-range, hi-fidelity lidar for autonomous trucking and Torc selected AWS as Torc’s preferred cloud provider for data handling.
Reinventing the truck
Daimler Truck’s subsidiary in North America, DTNA, is reinventing the truck chassis to integrate seamlessly with autonomous vehicle systems, adding redundancies for safety-critical components like steering, braking, and powernet. The Torc team continues developing software, testing, and systems integration. Developing a vehicle capable of safely and reliably executing commands given by an autonomous driving system requires a fundamentally different approach. Safety-critical components must be designed to detect a failure and invoke redundancy to safely execute its maneuvers. Should any of the most relevant systems encounter a fault, the Level 4 system needs to be able to monitor, assess and deploy backup systems to safely control the truck.
Growth
Commercializing a self-driving truck is one of the most challenging engineering feats of our generation, according to Fleming. To accomplish this, Torc has been growing since partnering with Daimler Truck and has more than doubled its workforce. Torc has also added power players to its leadership team, with the addition of NASA safety expert John Marinaro as Director of Operational Safety and Testing, veteran tech strategist Eddie Amos as Chief Transformation Officer, and technology marketer Jane Bailey as Vice President of Marketing and Communications.
“We’ve got a power team, power partners, and a clear path to commercialization,” Fleming said.
Torc Robotics, a pioneer in self-driving vehicles
Torc Robotics, headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia, is an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG, the global leader and pioneer in trucking. Founded in 2005 at the birth of the self-driving vehicle revolution, Torc has 16 years of experience in pioneering safety-critical, self-driving applications. Torc offers a complete self-driving vehicle software and integration solution and is currently focusing on commercializing self-driving trucks. “Trucking is the backbone of the U.S. economy, delivering food and products to every community in the country,” said Torc CEO Michael Fleming. “Daimler has led innovation in trucking for more than a century, from the first truck to driver-assist technology. Torc is working with Daimler Truck to commercialize self-driving trucks to make our roads safer and better fulfilling our mission of saving lives.”
Daimler Truck, the pioneer of automated trucks
Daimler Truck is the pioneer of truck automation. In 2014, the world’s leading truck manufacturer presented the Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025, the world’s first automated truck, and was the first to demonstrate the technological opportunities and great potential that automated trucks offer customers and society. In 2015, Daimler’s Freightliner Inspiration Truck obtained the first-ever road license for a partially automated commercial vehicle demonstrating the promise of automated driving on the highways of Nevada. Today, Daimler offers partially automated driving features (SAE Level 2) with the Mercedes-Benz Actros, the Freightliner Cascadia and the FUSO Super Great.
Daimler Trucks North America develops redundant vehicle chassis and infrastructure
Portland-based Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) is refining a truck chassis that is perfectly suited for highly automated driving as well as the redundancy of systems needed to achieve safe, reliable driving. As part of the Autonomous Technology Group, DTNA is also researching the infrastructure required for the operational testing of initial application cases. DTNA is contributing to the successful development of automated driving technology and vehicle integration for heavy-duty trucks.
