When Volvo introduced its all-new VNL in January, it declared it would be the future platform for all things alternative fuels and autonomy.

Just five months later, at ACT Expo, it revealed the first SAE Level 4 autonomous new VNL, built with Aurora Innovation.

“We are at the forefront of a new way to transport goods, complementing and enhancing transportation capacity, and thereby enabling trade and societal growth,” states Nils Jaeger, president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “This truck is the first of our standardized global autonomous technology platform, which will enable us to introduce additional models in the future, bringing autonomy to all Volvo Group truck brands, and to other geographies and use cases.”

Volvo plans to create an in-house produced virtual driver for trucks working within confined applications.

The Volvo VNL Autonomous has redundant steering, braking, communication, computation, power management, energy storage and vehicle motion management systems.

“Our platform engineering approach prioritizes safety by incorporating high-assurance redundancy systems designed to mitigate potential emergency situations,” said Shahrukh Kazmi, chief product officer at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “We built the Volvo VNL Autonomous from the ground up, integrating these redundancy systems to ensure that every safety-critical component is intentionally duplicated, thereby significantly enhancing both safety and reliability.”

The Aurora Driver has driven billions of simulated miles and 1.5 million miles on public roads.

“The Volvo VNL Autonomous, powered by the Aurora Driver, offers a fully integrated autonomous solution in the Hub-to-Hub segment,” says Sasko Cuklev, head of on-road solutions at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “Our approach reduces complexity for our customers while allowing them to experience the benefits of an autonomous solution with peace of mind by ensuring efficiency, safety and reliability.”