Plus, a global provider of autonomous driving software solutions, has announced a long-term partnership with the Scania, MAN and Navistar brands of the Traton Group for the global commercial deployment of Level 4 autonomous trucks.
Through the partnership, Plus will pair autonomous-ready base vehicles from Scania, MAN, and Navistar with its SuperDrive autonomous driving software, creating a L4 autonomous commercial transport solution for hub-to-hub operations. Plus’ SuperDrive software itself works to facilitate driverless vehicle operations. Through its partnerships with fleets, Tier-1 suppliers, OEMs, and infrastructure providers, Plus is validating and refining SuperDrive for integration into vehicles at the factory level and global commercial deployment.
Trucks from the Traton Group brands equipped with SuperDrive are already being tested on public roads in Europe and across the U.S. with a safety driver on board. Together, the partners will begin piloting commercial operations with fleets in 2024, before starting series production and global commercial deployment at scale.
The jointly-developed L4 autonomous trucks at the center of the new partnership are currently being tested in Texas, in the freight corridor between San Antonio and Dallas, and will expand to other routes in the Texas Triangle and I-10 corridor. Commercial deployments will expand incrementally along additional strategic U.S. corridors. In Europe, testing is currently being conducted on a route between Södertälje and Nyköping in Sweden, with plans to conduct pilot operations alongside customers in other European countries in 2024.
