The Era Of 'Hanti' Trucks Coming To Texas, The Future Of Driverless Logistics

Torc Robotics successfully validated its autonomous truck products completely in October last year. (Doc. Torc Robotics)

JAKARTA - Texas is the second largest state in the United States after Alaska. In the automotive world, Texas is a haven for the development of autonomous trucks with many startups testing driverless trucks in the region.

One of them is Torc Robotics, an autonomous truck developer from Daimler Truck AG, which recently announced plans to build an operating center in Texas's Dallas-Fort Worth region, which is scheduled to operate this year after obtaining approval. The company has also validated SAE Level 4 technology in recent months and aims to launch commercial operations in Texas starting in 2027.

The Torc Robotics Operation Center will focus on pilot programs for shipping goods for customers, autonomous testing, and in the end commercial operations in the next two years. The location of the operation center is 18 hectares and will cover an office space of 2400 square meters. The company plans to complete this facility starting earlier this year.

"This follows the successful testing of product revenues from our driverless autonomous trucks in a closed highway environment of multi-paths at high speed, which further demonstrates our dedication to the safety standards and maturity of its products," said Andrew Culhane, Chief Commercial Officer at Torc. , as reported by Autoweek, Friday 10 January.

Torc Robotics is also said to be serious about commercializing its SAE Level 4 technology starting in 2027, after several testing rounds.

According to them, trials have been carried out at highway speeds and are intended to preview scalable product releases, testing the system essentially as intended to enter production. This makes this testing round different from previous experimental efforts.

However, the road to commercialization is still long even though it's in autonomous technology-friendly Texas. Commercial launches will also require a major control center for the truck fleet, so autonomous trucking companies will create new jobs, especially technology and on the one hand, the impact of closing job opportunities for truck drivers.

This is partly the reason why a number of states, including Texas, welcome the autonomous vehicle industry, in hopes of creating more jobs in the tech sector.

"This new center will allow us to serve our current and future customers better, improve our operational capabilities, and encourage the adoption of autonomous technology in the logistics industry," concluded CEO Peter Vaughan Schmidt.