Daimler presented the new Freightliner Cascadia at CES, which later this year will become the first series production truck with Level 2 autonomous driving features available in North America.
The German company also announced the investment of around $570 million (€500 million) into Level 4 autonomous driving technology in order to have highly automated trucks on the roads by the end of the decade.
Level 4 autonomous driving systems will increase efficiency and productivity for customers and significantly reduce costs per mile. Daimler will skip the development of Level 3 systems, as it believes it will not offer truck customers a substantial advantage over the current technology.
The new Freightliner Cascadia will combine the Active Drive Assist/Detroit Assurance 5.0 system with the Active Lane Assist, mixing information from the onboard radar and cameras, enabling the rig to independently brake, accelerate and steer. The new system makes partially automated driving possible in all speed ranges.
Daimler Trucks will create 200 new jobs in the area of autonomous driving technologies inits new Automated Truck Research & Development Center in Portland, Oregon. The engineers in Portland will work in close cooperation with their colleagues in Stuttgart, Germany and Bangalore, India, thus forming a global network.