Dive Brief:
- Torc, a subsidiary of Daimler Truck, has begun testing its autonomous trucks on public roads in the greater Ann Arbor, Michigan, area, according to a Feb. 24 press release.
- The Midwest city joins Dallas-Fort Worth and Blacksburg, Virginia, in the company’s testing network as it works toward commercializing Level 4 autonomous trucks. These vehicles are highly automated but operate only within specific driving conditions and routes.
- “Each new hardware generation allows us to further validate our AI inference models, strengthen our simulation accuracy, and ensure our autonomous system performs safely and reliably in real-world conditions,” said Felix Heide, Torc’s head of artificial intelligence, in the release.
Dive Insight:
The testing operations build on Torc’s growing presence in Michigan, where the company established a 32,000-square-foot engineering office in Ann Arbor in 2025. The facility represented a planned investment of at least $5.59 million and is expected to create up to 500 new jobs in the state, according to an Aug. 7 press release.
The company, which is currently hiring for machine learning, AI and cybersecurity roles, is aiming to leverage the region’s autonomous and automotive talent base to support its continued testing and development efforts. The state’s concentration of engineering expertise — such as the University of Michigan’s Robotics Department — and established mobility ecosystem make it a strategic location for advancing autonomous vehicle technology.
The expansion comes after Torc has been highlighting its AV 3.0 autonomous system on Daimler Truck’s autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia platform, describing it as both a differentiator and a necessary step toward its goal of commercial production in 2027.
“There are two kinds of autonomous trucks on the road today, at the end of 2025. There are demonstration trucks — and there are Torc trucks,” said Andrew Culhane, chief commercial officer, said in a November 2025 press release.
