Volvo autonomous truck is go

Volvo’s autonomous truck project that we reported on late last year is a reality. Speaking at a media conference at Volvo’s Australian HQ in Wacol, Queensland, Volvo Group’s Director of Autonomous Solutions Sasko Cukev said the company already had a buyer for the autonomous truck system.

Although Mr Cukev wouldn’t be drawn on exactly who the customer was, he did say that the system, called Vera, was real and designed for a particular customer.

Mr Cukev said that the trucks, which can’t be driven by a person on-board, are actually “a Volvo FH with the cab chopped off and the driveline swapped for an electric one”.

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He added that the 200kWh motor had a range of 100km and took just 30 minutes to charge. The truck is designed to have a speed of 40km/h for safety reasons.

Vera is a complete transport system which is handled by autonomous electric vehicles linked to a cloud service and a central control centre. The vehicles are equipped with sophisticated systems for autonomous driving. They are designed to locate their current position to within centimetres, monitor in detail and analyse what is happening with other road users, and then respond accurately.

The transport control centre continuously monitors the progress of the transport and keeps an accurate watch of each vehicle’s position, the amount of charge in the batteries, load content, service requirements and a number of other parameters.

Mr Cukev said that although the Vera project is going ahead, automation is not going to be the threat that many think. “It (automation) is not for everyone,” he said. “It’s a complement to the transport that we have today.”

He also said that autonomous vehicles on public roads have their challenges. “The regulatory framework is not there, and there is the question of liability in the instance of an accident,” Mr Cukev said.

While Mr Cukev said that the idea of autonomous vehicles was not new, and he cited some trains, aeroplanes and even lawn mowers as examples, the future will see trucks in many applications like mines, ports and even some on-road applications being either fully or partially autonomous.

Meanwhile, Volvo is also going ahead with its autonomous mine vehicles and its electric trucks which are already on roads in Sweden.