Torc Robotics plans to remove its long-haul trucking drivers from public roads in late 2026 in Texas, according to VP of Commercialization Nick Elder.
The Blacksburg, Virginia-based tech company wants to ensure it can deliver the autonomous product at scale, Elder said in an interview with Trucking Dive last month.
The company plans to launch its first driverless lane on public roads using a major lane along Interstate 35 in Texas, such as between Dallas-Fort Worth and the border city of Laredo, Elder said.
“When we talk about initial deployments, we're going to be looking at one or two or three lanes, and then we're going to expand over a larger geographic region,” he said.
The company anticipates its safety protocols, testing and other factors will be ready for a product launch in 2026, “with scalable market entry in 2027,” the company said last August.
Torc, an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck, has been piloting the technology in the southwestern U.S. with partners such as C.R. England and Schneider National. The business expects to initially scale in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, Elder said.
Torc’s technology encompasses a variety of factors to drive the trucks, including pre-programmed parameters and artificial intelligence, according to the company.
The company was founded in 2005 and drew early success with a third-place finish with a driverless car challenge in 2007 held by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
“That gained us some some visibility that that we basically parlayed into working with folks who were kind of the early adopters,” Elder said.
In 2019, Daimler Truck acquired a majority stake in the business, and last year, Torc acquired Montréal-based Algolux, a vision detection software company making strides in the face of difficult weather conditions.
Daimler noted the Algolux acquisition in its 2023 annual report, stating the technology “will help to further expand one of the most important technical capabilities for the market launch of autonomous trucks.”
Clarification: This story clarified a potential route in Texas that Torc plans to initially deploy.
