Waabi will use an “AI-first” approach to self-driving technology by training the software with deep learning, which it said will reduce the need for the road tests and manual tuning the industry has long relied on. That traditional approach has limited self-driving cars to very simple and small uses, keeping them away from the more complex driving scenarios people are likely to encounter.
The company will first focus on long-haul trucking, with the aim to address the industry’s driver shortage and safety issues. Canada is expected to have a shortage of more than 25,000 truck drivers by 2023, a 25 per cent increase from the 2019 vacancies, a study from the Canadian Trucking Alliance and the Conference Board of Canada found.
Waabi’s funding round, which it claimed is one of the largest-ever raises by a Canadian company, was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from both Uber and Aurora, as well as OMERS Ventures, and fellow heavy-hitter AI researchers Sanja Fidler, AI director of Nvidia, and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton.
Tesla Inc. parted ways with top lieutenant Jerome Guillen as of June 3, the company said in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Guillen, most recently president of heavy trucking, was hired in 2010 as program director for Tesla’s Model S electric vehicle and was seen as instrumental in helping ramp up production for the company’s Model 3 vehicle in 2018.Article content