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Waabi Pushes Autonomous Trucking Toward Predictable Capacity

The autonomous trucking industry is transitioning from pilot testing to deployable capacity that carriers and shippers can reliably plan around, according to Waabi, the Toronto-based company founded by autonomous vehicle researcher Raquel Urtasun. Unlike competitors pursuing highway-only routes, Waabi has developed an end-to-end artificial intelligence model enabling door-to-door autonomy. These highway-only approaches require expensive human-driven first and last-mile segments that recreate traditional cost structures with hundreds of dollars in transfer fees. The platform uses a neural simulator to test rare and dangerous edge cases without road deployment, allowing the system to handle real-world complexity. Waabi Chief Operating Officer Lior Ron, formerly of Uber Freight, contends that such hub-to-hub models fail to escape legacy cost burdens. The company's approach applies the same underlying technology to both freight and passenger applications, positioning autonomous trucking as a solution to driver shortages and capacity constraints.