Dive Brief:
- The startup Stack AV, headquartered in Pittsburgh, launched an autonomous trucking business last week, according to a news release.
- SoftBank Group is backing the company with capital, resources and artificial intelligence expertise, according to the release. A spokesperson didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment about the level of funding.
- “We are designing AI-powered solutions to alleviate long-standing issues in the trucking industry, like driver shortages, lagging efficiency in uptime per vehicle, overarching safety concerns, high operating costs, and elevated emission levels,” the company said on LinkedIn.
Dive Insight:
Stack AV founders have ties to the autonomous passenger car startup Argo AI, which started in 2016 and received billions in funding from Ford and Volkswagen before shuttering in 2022.
Stack AV began under another name, Eva AV, in November 2022, before a name switch in July 2023, according to Pennsylvania business registration records.
The company is headquartered in Pittsburgh and has 150 workers there and in 15 states in a remote/coworking model, according to the news release.
The company’s leadership previously ran Argo AI, a Pittsburgh-based startup that tested self-driving cars on roads and had locations in the U.S., including California, and Germany.
In late 2022, Ford and Volkswagen wrote off funding from Argo AI. Ford previously said the startup failed to attract new investors. The automaker also said fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a “long way off” and “we won’t necessarily have to create the technology ourselves.”
Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume noted last year on a Q3 earnings call the company was shifting away from Argo and pursuing other AV partnerships, including an ongoing one with Germany-based engineering and tech giant Bosch as well as a new investment with Horizon Robotics in China.
Executives for Stack AV include Bryan Salesky, founder and CEO; Peter Rander, president; and Brett Browning, chief technology officer.
