MAN: first autonomous truck on the motorway

MAN has become the first commercial vehicle manufacturer to send an autonomous truck onto the German motorway.

On board of the test truck, which drove around 10 km on the A9 between the Allershausen and Fürholzen junctions, were Federal Transport Minister Dr Volker Wissing and MAN CEO Alexander Vlaskamp.

MAN, which has been intensively driving forward the development of autonomous trucks for use in logistics hubs and for hub-to-hub traffic, recently became the first commercial vehicle manufacturer to receive a Level 4 test permit based on the law on autonomous driving on German motorways.

According to the company, there is a steady growth in freight volumes and transport between logistics hubs that include warehouses of large online department stores.

The use of autonomous trucks in this so-called hub-to-hub transport is particularly suitable for this as the trucks are always on the road, extremely efficient in terms of consumption and safe to drive.

There are no driving time breaks, so the vehicles can be perfectly integrated into tightly synchronised logistics processes. In the long term, the efficient use of autonomous trucks can reduce overall operating costs by 10 to 15%.

MAN also claims that the new technology can also alleviate the driver shortage. There is already a shortage of up to 100,000 truck drivers in Germany alone, the company said in a statement.

“Further hub-to-hub projects will follow from 2025, but then in typical customer applications. We are thus taking the next development step towards series production of autonomous trucks towards the end of the decade. The law on autonomous driving gives our industry the necessary planning security,” said Alexander Vlaskamp, Chairman of the Executive Board of MAN Truck & Bus SE.

He added that the company will need to work closely with infrastructure operators such as Autobahn GmbH to realise autonomous driving.