Waymo Via’s autonomous trucks to haul C.H. Robinson customer freight in several pilots over the coming years. Expertise and knowledge sharing to spur long-term development of autonomous freight transportation for customers and carriers
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Global logistics company C.H. Robinson BB #:100586 and Waymo Via, the trucking and local delivery unit of autonomous driving technology company Waymo, have formed a long-term strategic partnership to mutually explore the practical application of autonomous driving technology in logistics and supply chains.
The partnership combines the benefits of Waymo’s innovative autonomous driving technology, the Waymo Driver, with C.H. Robinson’s Navisphere technology, which is the world’s most-connected logistics platform.
The collaboration will focus, initially, on running multiple pilots in the Dallas-Houston transportation lane, with Waymo Via autonomous trucks hauling C.H. Robinson’s customer freight. During and after the pilots, the companies will collaborate to shape the future development and expansion of autonomous driving technology as an additional transportation solution. This will provide much-needed capacity, help improve the carrier and driver experience and address the business challenges posed by long-term driver shortages.
“We are excited to partner with Waymo Via to explore how autonomous driving technology can help bring increased capacity and sustainability into our logistics strategies. Together, we are going to harness this emerging freight technology and its potential on behalf of customers and carriers,” said Chris O’Brien, Chief Commercial Officer at C.H. Robinson. “We believe there is a real opportunity to bring our scale and information advantage to bear to help develop transportation solutions for them and their ability to participate in and benefit from AV. C.H. Robinson is also best positioned to represent the role of drivers and small and mid-size carriers in a more autonomous future.”
“We look forward to this collaboration with C.H. Robinson, both for their deep roots and experience in logistics and transportation, but also as a company that shares our vision of how technology and autonomous trucking can change our industry for the better,” said Charlie Jatt, Head of Commercialization for Trucking at Waymo. “C.H. Robinson’s size, scale and platform gives us access to rich and unique transportation data along with customer relationships and pilot opportunities to help bring our Waymo Via solution to the market.”
About C.H. Robinson
C.H. Robinson solves logistics problems for companies across the globe and across industries, from the simple to the most complex. With $28 billion in freight under management and 20 million shipments annually, we are one of the world’s largest logistics platforms. Our global suite of services accelerates trade to seamlessly deliver the products and goods that drive the world’s economy. With the combination of our multimodal transportation management system and expertise, we use our information advantage to deliver smarter solutions for our nearly 100,000 customers and our 85,000 contract carriers. Our technology is built by and for supply chain experts to bring faster, more meaningful improvements to our customers’ businesses. As a responsible global citizen, we are also proud to contribute millions of dollars to support causes that matter to our company, our Foundation and our employees. For more information, visit us at www.chrobinson.com .
About Waymo
Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going. Since our start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has been focused on building, deploying, and commercializing the World’s Most Experienced Driver™ technology to improve the world’s access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo One, the world’s first fully autonomous ride-hailing service, as well as Waymo Via, our trucking and local delivery service. To date, Waymo has autonomously driven tens of millions of miles on public roads and tens of billions of miles in simulation, across 13+ U.S. states. For more: www.waymo.com.
