MIAMI — Ryder System Inc. and Waymo Via have formed a partnership to provide maintenance for Class 8 autonomous trucks in an effort to maximize vehicle up-time and ensure the reliability required to scale operations nationwide. Waymo Via is the trucking and local delivery unit of autonomous driving developer Waymo.
According to a statement from the two companies, Waymo Via’s growing fleet and geographical footprint calls for a robust, scalable maintenance solution — and Ryder has a network of more than 500 maintenance facilities in the U.S. and nearly 90 years of fleet maintenance expertise. The two companies will partner 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,” she said. “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 offers more than a decade of experience in building autonomous driving technology, and has driven more than 20 million miles on public roads across 10 U.S. states; in addition to 20 billion miles in simulation.
“As we continue to scale our autonomous trucking operations, we couldn’t have found a better partner than Ryder,” said Charlie Jatt, head of commercialization for Waymo Via trucking. “There are many synergies between our Waymo Via vision and operations and Ryder’s expertise and resources, and we look forward to unlocking best-in-class solutions within the industry and bringing autonomously driven trucks to market throughout the U.S.”
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