Ryder System and Waymo Via, the trucking and local delivery unit of leading autonomous driving developer Waymo, are partnering to focus on providing maintenance for Class 8 autonomous trucks. The goal of the partnership is to maximize vehicle uptime and ensure the reliability required to scale operations nationwide.
With a growing fleet and geographical footprint, Waymo Via will utilize Ryder’s network of more than 500 maintenance facilities in the U.S. and nearly 90 years of fleet maintenance expertise to scale truck maintenance operations, partnering on servicing and evolving maintenance practices for autonomously driven trucks across Waymo Via sites in Texas, Arizona, California, Michigan, and Ohio, as well as roadside service between hubs.
“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,” said Karen Jones, chief marketing officer and head of new product development for Ryder. “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.”
Waymo brings over a decade of experience in building autonomous driving technology, having driven more than 20 million miles on public roads across 10 U.S. states and 20 billion miles in simulation.
“As we continue to scale our autonomous trucking operations, we couldn’t have found a better partner than Ryder,” Charlie Jatt, head of commercialization for Waymo Via, said. “There are many synergies between our Waymo Via vision and operations and Ryder’s expertise and resources, and we look forward to unlocking solutions within the industry and bringing autonomously driven trucks to market throughout the U.S.”
