Autonomous vehicle developer Nuro has announced it is significantly expanding the capabilities of its zero-occupant vehicles. Powered by the company’s AI-enabled Nuro Driver system, these Level 4 autonomous vehicles are now operational in two states, expanding in both deployment and capabilities on the road.
Nuro is a robotics company founded by two engineers who were former employees of Google’s Waymo project. Since 2016, Nuro has developed and publicly tested its three generations of autonomous last-mile delivery vehicles, the most recent of which debuted in January 2022.
With autonomous operations in Palo Alto, Nuro has expanded its business model, signing long-term partnerships with companies like Uber Eats to deliver autonomous food orders. This past
In September, Nuro announced a new business model that includes licensing its Nuro Driver platform to other automotive OEMs and mobility providers.
Nuro sees potential in its state-of-the-art autonomous driving system that combines automotive-grade hardware and AI-powered self-driving software to enable up to Level 4 autonomous driving for mobility platforms and passenger vehicles.
While we wait to see what sort of partnerships and supply agreements come from that new business venture, Nuro is showcasing the capabilities of its Driver platform using its own autonomous delivery vehicles, which are not only covering more linear miles but at higher speeds in trickier driving situations.
Nuro’s autonomous vehicles are now in 3 US cities
According to Nuro, it has expanded its Level 4 autonomous vehicle network to three cities in two states, hailing the growth as one of the largest L4 deployments in the country. The expansion applies to two regions: Palo Alto and Mountain View, California, which sees an 83% increase in deployment area (linear miles), and Houston, Texas, which sees a 70% increase.
The progress of Nuro’s zero-occupant delivery vehicles has been led by the AI-enabled Nuro Driver system, but the company also explained that its newly expanded operational design domain (ODD) has delivered additional technological advancements to the autonomous vehicles:
- Multi-lane road operation at speeds up to 35 mph
- Improvements related to complex scenario handling, such as reacting to active emergency vehicles, navigating construction zones, and responding to active school buses
- Added night operation, greatly expanding service availability
Nuro says that, to date, its vehicle fleet has logged more than one million autonomous miles with zero autonomous at-fault incidents. The autonomous system itself was designed with cost-effective, automotive-grade components to enable large-scale deployment across various vehicle types and use cases. This is an appropriate strategy for trying to woo OEMs into licensing the tech. Nuro co-founder and CEO Jiajun Zhu elaborated:
Since publicly unveiling our new direction a little over a month ago, we have seen tremendous interest in our AI-driven autonomy platform from automotive OEMs and mobility companies. Our latest driverless deployment demonstrates the maturity and capability of our AI platform, and we’re excited for potential partners to capitalize on the performance, safety and sophistication of the Nuro Driver to build their own incredible autonomy products.
You can see more of Nuro’s zero-occupant autonomous vehicles in the company’s latest video below:
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