Austin has been among the nation's top hubs for electric and autonomous vehicles for several years. Now it has attracted yet another company to its ranks.
Blacksburg, Virginia-based autonomous trucking company Torc Robotics Inc. plans to open a development and engineering office in Austin early this year.
The 21,000-square-foot space is in The Park on Barton Creek, an office campus near where Loop 360 and MoPac intersect. The company declined to say how many people will work there, but it said employees in the Austin office will be a blend of new hires and current employees.
Torc Chief People Officer Marnie Young told me via email that the class A commercial space is move-in ready, and that the company is working with a local architect to personalize the space. Alice Duffy with Keller Williams Realty assisted in finding the new digs.
"We’re excited to grow Torc by tapping into the abundance of local talent in the Austin area, and we are currently hiring software engineers," Young said.
This will be Torc's third U.S. location in addition to its headquarters in Blacksburg and a test center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company is also testing along a route on I-40 in Texas, Young said, and is planning additional testing in the Austin area.
Aside from local tech talent, Torc said it picked Austin for its location along the Southwest shipping corridor. As of Jan. 7, Torc listed 39 job openings online that could be filled in Austin, from system architect to software engineering to recruitment marketing specialist.
"With Austin's relatively low cost of living as compared to other major cities in the U.S. and high quality of life, it was the logical choice for our new facility," Mike Avitabile, vice president of engineering, said in an announcement. "The local talent pool is impressive, and the city is also known for being innovative, collaborative, and entrepreneurial."
Torc, founded in 2005, is working on level four self-driving trucks. According to J.D. Power, there are six levels of autonomous driving, ranging from zero to five. Level four, referred to as high-driving automation, involves vehicles that require no human intervention. J.D. Power noted, as of May, there were no vehicles sold with automation of level three or above in the United States.
Two years ago, Daimler Truck acquired a majority share of Torc as an independent subsidiary.
The company joins a growing number of autonomous and electrical vehicle makers in Austin. Tesla may be the largest and most obvious player in the market these days, but many other companies are growing here that specialize in the future of transportation.
In May 2021, Swedish autonomous electric freight vehicle company Einride said it was planning to establish Austin as its U.S. headquarters after raising a $110 million series B funding round. San Diego-based autonomous trucking company TuSimple has also expanded to Texas to launch autonomous freight shipping between Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston, and it's recruiting autonomous vehicle system operators and testing engineers in Austin. Meanwhile, California-based Nvidia is recruiting in Austin for its AI infrastructure and autonomous business unit.
Ford and Argo AI, meanwhile, are poised this year to launch self-driving taxi services in Austin for everyday consumers. Google started testing self-driving cars here in 2015, and the company says Austin was home to the first-ever fully autonomous ride by a regular customer.
