Shift Magazine - December 2021 - 17

Torc's " Coyote " route stretches from the company's operational depot into Tijeras Canyon.
on the incline into Tijeras Canyon.
The truck makes autonomous lane
changes unprompted by humans, combining
pre-mapped information about merges
and exits ahead with real-time knowledge
about vehicles in adjacent lanes. After a
brief stint in manual mode at a turnaround
point, the truck handles one of those short
on-ramps on a downward spot, adapting
to faster highway traffic.
Near the city, it stays in the center lane.
Most of Torc's competitors have established
operational depots in places such as
Phoenix and Dallas and test on long hauls
between cities. Torc, an independent subsidiary
of Daimler Trucks, resides here
in Albuquerque. Specifically, in a former
Ford dealership, from which it dispatches
a dozen or so Freightliner Cascadia Class
8 trucks for daily testing.
On a mid-November morning, I went
along for the ride, sitting in the rear seats,
along with Culhane.
Once Torc's two-person safety driving
team receives permission to depart from
mission-control specialists, we begin the
company's " Coyote " route, headed up
Interstate 25 and easing onto Interstate
40. A blue light near the ceiling illuminates
when the truck enters autonomous mode.
Along the way, Culhane explains how
the interstate exchanges and rush-hour
congestion established Albuquerque as a
front-runner in 2020. Inhospitable conditions
further enticed him - hot temperatures
and high altitude conspire to leave
cars and trucks littered along the shoulder
It seems like an assertive choice instead
of staying in the right lane. But it keeps the
truck away from the fray of cars entering
and leaving the highway around frequent
exits ahead - an insight gleaned from
human truck drivers, whose skills Culhane
holds in high esteem.
" It's not the algorithm guy, it's these
guys who know how to get the truck down
the road, " he says, gesturing toward our
human safety drivers. " That's who you
should be listening to. "
After more than an hour of uneventful
travel, we're back at Torc's operations
depot. For all the seamlessness, the
company's CEO and co-founder, Michael
Fleming, cautions about being overly
impressed by such demonstration rides.
" The demo case is easy, " he says.
" Building a product is more challenging. "
BUSINESS-MINDED BEGINNING
He should know. Counting his time in
school at Virginia Tech, Fleming has been
honing
autonomous-driving
technology
and the business case to support it for
two decades. As a student, he participated
in the first two DARPA challenges,
autonomous vehicle races sponsored by
the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, and he helped develop the first
self-driving system for team Victor Tango,
which placed third in the 2007 DARPA
Urban Challenge.
Torc
Robotics,
headquartered
near
Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., formed
from that experience. It ranks as one of
two teams from the industry's DARPA
days still intact. Waymo is the other. But
where Google funded its self-driving car
project following DARPA and established
Waymo as its commercial descendant in
December 2016, Fleming and Torc have
been focused on making the business
succeed from the outset.
While Google and others chased robotaxi
applications, Torc earned defense
contracts and deployed its self-driving
systems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later,
the company deployed on Caterpillar
mining trucks operating in Australia, and
then made a short-lived foray into the
self-driving shuttle space with Transdev,
which ended as the pandemic hindered
shared transportation.
Torc made enough money to survive,
even as finances were tight enough that
outfitting two Lexus test vehicles for a
CES demonstration counted as substantial
expenses. Fleming had little interest in
following competitors in seeking venture
capital.
" This industry continues to celebrate
the massive amounts of capital raised, "
he said. " I never view the capital raise as
a means of celebration. I look at it as an
obligation to fulfill to your investors, to do
what you said you were going to do. "
Continued on page 18
december 2021 * shift 17
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