Automotive autonomous software maker Plus has announced a major deal with one of Europe’s largest trucking conglomerates, Traton. This long-term partnership covers the commercial deployment of Plus’s SAE Level 4 autonomous driving solution, SuperDrive, in Scania, MAN and Navistar autonomous trucks made by Traton. I have written previously on game-changing deals Plus has made with other players in the trucking industry—Iveco, for instance—and this partnership represents another major win for Plus. Let’s dive into this announcement and how I believe it gives Plus an element of permanence within the trucking industry.
For context, Scania, MAN and Navistar are the Traton Group’s commercial vehicle brands for Sweden, Germany and the United States, respectively. Autonomous trucks from Scania and Navistar are already being tested on public roads in Europe and the United States with safety drivers, and there are future plans for series production and global commercial deployments of these trucks at scale.
The partnership announcement comes as Plus has made a significant change in its delivery model. Rather than offer a monolithic platform, the company has now disaggregated its offerings via its recently launched Open Platform for Autonomy. This approach allows vehicle OEMs to work with Plus to customize the configuration of sensors, processors and other vehicle systems to deliver exactly the level of autonomy desired, whether that means next-generation safety systems to augment human drivers, fully autonomous “driver-out” vehicles or anything in between.
It’s worth highlighting that Traton opted not only for a long-term commitment, but also to implement Plus’s integrated L4 (fully autonomous) solution, SuperDrive. Traton could have chosen to license just individual modules from Plus under the OPA model; instead, it chose to go all-in with Plus’s technology. That is huge win for Plus and for the trucking industry as a whole.
On a recent episode of The Six Five Podcast, Daniel Newman and I discussed the Plus-Traton partnership.
The Work Required To Put Autonomy On The Road
I have mentioned before how hard it is to be successful for a company like Plus that enters into a mature market with a novel technology. Not only does Plus have to prove this new autonomous solution and its value, but it also has to prove itself as a company that is capable of delivering the solution at scale. And this one is not a simple technology to prove, either. AI may be a buzzword that is permeating every category of technology, but its raw value can most definitely be seen in autonomous driving systems. Plus’s strategy has been to prove its value in advanced driving assistance systems, highly automated driving and its L4 autonomous driving solution.
How do these different levels of advanced driving create value for OEMs and Plus’s partners with respect to safety, driver retention and fuel efficiency? To get our heads around this, we need to take a step back and look at the different approaches OEMs have taken in adopting this technology. One option is to build it all in-house. This approach is very challenging, even for an OEM with a lot of resources to work with, especially since internally the manufacturer may not have the technological know-how, and it may take a lot of effort and money to acquire that know-how. Daimler Truck, for example, is taking this approach and has partnered with Torc to build its autonomous driving solution in-house.
Another approach is to partner with a tech supplier that has an all-in-one solution that covers hardware, software and autonomous network infrastructure. For instance, two of the five large trucking OEMs, Paccar and Volvo Trucks, are doing this with Aurora and its Aurora Driver solution. Keep in mind that Aurora is going straight to L4 technology, so it is tackling a lot of complexity.
The last approach for a truck OEM is to build a stack based on the available software and hardware solutions. This approach is most similar to the way truck OEMs handle other tech implementations in the current manufacturing process, but it requires a lot of moving parts. However, it does also allow for more customization and control of the overall system. In this context, Plus has differentiated itself as an autonomy software solution that truck OEMs can build their autonomous driving systems around.
While this last approach is most appealing to truck OEMs because of its familiarity and ease of customization, in a way it requires others to do the work. This is where Plus’s strategy really shines, and it’s a big reason why Plus has captured two of the five major trucking OEMs.
Establishing A Sense Of Permanence
Plus did—and is doing—two things well that solidified it as a major provider. The first thing was to recognize where autonomous driving is today and plan for the future. Unlike its competition that is going straight to L4, namely Aurora, Plus took its L4 stack and constrained it so the company could put out L1 and L2-plus solutions first. This move by Plus had a couple of benefits. For one thing, Plus was able to prove itself within an already mature market without putting major OEMs in a position where they had to make huge, dramatic changes. This gave Plus’s customers the chance to dip their feet in the water and get an idea of what it means to implement advanced driver assist systems. The other advantage was that it allowed Plus to build around its L1 and L2-plus offerings instead of pushing in all of its chips on L4 at one time—and potentially before the market was ready. It built off the pieces of technology it has already proven and used the data collected from those deployments to feed into its L4 solution.
By taking this approach, Plus future-proofed its technology stack. Plus then recognized that some OEMs would want an all-in-one software solution, whereas others would want only certain pieces of it to integrate into their own software stacks. By disaggregating its software into an open platform for autonomy, Plus gave itself the ability to meet more manufacturers’ needs as L4 solutions became more readily available. These days, Plus is partnering with Amazon, Iveco, Nikola, Bosch, Luminar and DSV on L2-plus implementations at the same time it is providing L4 solutions to two of the top five truck OEMs in the world as well as the largest toll-road operator in Australia.
The second thing Plus is doing well is develop partners. Most startups that intend to only do software focus on creating that software—but then find that they have to build out a platform for it and end up doing it all. For Plus, it had to prove out its software without taking on big platform/infrastructure commitments, and it achieved this through partnerships with hardware companies. Plus understands that the problem of autonomous driving is too big for one company to tackle by itself; because of that understanding, since day one it has had a significant focus on building solid partnerships. Almost all of my coverage of Plus has spoken to its partnerships with companies such as Nvidia, Bosch, Amazon and OEMs including Nikola and Iveco.
Going forward, I hope to see Plus develop even more partnerships with technology platform providers such as Intel, AMD, Qualcomm and even MediaTek. Intel has a big focus on automotive chips and could use Plus’s software long-term. Meanwhile, AMD is behind with its software and Qualcomm is looking to do it all on its own. But Qualcomm is also good at developing partnerships, and a partnership with Plus could put Qualcomm in an even better position. Another hardware manufacturer that could be a good partner is MediaTek, which is moving up the food chain. If MediaTek wants to get serious in the automotive space, a partnership with Plus could be a good fit—and give Qualcomm a run for its money. And keep in mind that these are just the chip companies that have known scalable platforms. Don’t forget about TI, NXP, Ambarella and Renesas, which are also well positioned to provide hardware.
Wrapping Up
Out of the five largest truck OEMs in the world, one is trying to build its autonomous driving platform internally, two are partnered with Aurora for its full hardware and software stack and two more are partnered with Plus for its full L4 software stack. There is still a lot of ground to cover for autonomous driving solutions, but all five big truck makers are locked in for the future. It’s interesting to note here that other AV developers including Kodiak and Waabi don’t have OEM partners, which is crucial for scaling deployments in commercial L4 trucks.
I am excited to see how these autonomous driving solutions play out and spur on innovation within the trucking industry. While the big truck OEMs have locked in on these solutions, they are not set in stone, and I believe that once we see autonomous trucks on the road at scale, we will have a better idea of how all of these solutions will play out for the long run.
Out of the three approaches to implementing autonomous driving, we should look for which one leads to organic innovation and growth and look at how quickly this innovation can be deployed within a fleet lifecycle. The approach that is confronted with the most competition usually sees the most innovation, and right now that seems to be the approach that Plus and its partners are taking. In short, Plus is doing a good job of creating a platform for providing variety and options to manufacturers. I am excited to see this technology mature and create safe and fuel-efficient autonomous trucks on the road.
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