Waymo Via's Class 8 autonomous trucks will be provided maintenance services and roadside assistance by the logistics and transportation firm across the US
Ryder System, Waymo partner on autonomous truck maintenance. (Credit: Business Wire)
Ryder System, a logistics and transportation company, has joined forces with Waymo Via for offering maintenance for Class 8 autonomous trucks in the US.
Waymo Via is the trucking and local delivery division of autonomous driving developer Waymo.
As part of the partnership, Ryder System will be responsible for maintenance services and roadside assistance for Waymo Via’s Class 8 autonomous trucks. Initially, the services will be confined to five states and later on could extend throughout the US as the companies plan to scale operations.
Due to an increasing fleet and geographical presence, Waymo Via required a strong and scalable solution for the maintenance of its autonomous trucks.
Waymo Via trucking commercialisation head Charlie Jatt said: “As we continue to scale our autonomous trucking operations, we couldn’t have found a better partner than Ryder.
“There are many synergies between our Waymo Via vision and operations and Ryder’s expertise and resources, and we look forward to unlocking best-in-class solutions within the industry and bringing autonomously driven trucks to market throughout the U.S.”
Ryder System maintains a network of over 500 maintenance facilities in the US and is said to have close to nine decades of fleet maintenance expertise.
The two firms will partner on servicing and evolving maintenance practices for autonomously driven trucks across Waymo Via sites in Texas, California, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan, along with roadside service between hubs.
Ryder System chief marketing officer and new product development head Karen Jones said: “While this partnership initially focuses on fleet maintenance, we see many opportunities to collaborate on autonomous trucking operations in order to successfully deploy these trucks at scale.
“Already, we’ve collaborated on the layout and design of Waymo’s new Dallas facility to ensure it’s optimized for serviceability of trucks and for the transfer hub model they plan to pursue in the near future.
“Autonomous Class 8 technology is quickly taking hold, and Ryder is poised to become a leader – not only in servicing trucks but also in managing the unique logistics of autonomous operations.”
The partnership with Ryder System follows a $2.5bn fundraise by Waymo in June 2021. The autonomous driving technology company was spun out from Google’s owner Alphabet.