Autonomous Truck Firm Waabi Hires Uber Freight's Lior Ron
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Trucking industry veteran is joining autonomous technology company Waabi to help scale the commercial deployment of driverless trucks, the company announced Aug. 12.
Ron will serve as chief operating officer, responsible for scaling operations and driving go-to-market strategy. Waabi said he brings transformative leadership experience that spans technology, logistics and commercial strategy. The decision for the hire comes after several milestones to reach fully driverless trucks. Ron has years of experience to draw on for his new position, including his most recent role as the founder and leader of Uber Freight.
Also on Aug. 12, Uber Freight revealed hat Rebecca Tinucci will be stepping in as CEO. She most recently worked at Tesla, where she served several roles including leading its global electrification strategy. The announcement also noted that Ron will transition chairman of the company.
“I couldn’t be more excited,” Ron told Transport Topics. “This is a continuation of a journey in logistics and supply chain, spending the first decade building Uber Freight and helping to build the digital infrastructure of the industry, and the next decade is going to be about autonomy and bringing autonomous to the supply chain. I couldn’t think about a better place to do that than Waabi.”
Waabi is an artificial intelligence company that develops autonomous driving technology for the transportation sector. has led the company since founding it in 2021. Ron views it as being the most scalable, efficient and safe autonomous solution available.
Toronto-based hires CEO Lior Ron as COO to lead commercialization of self-driving trucks. — BetaKit (@BetaKit)
“That’s exactly where I come in,” Ron said. “So that solution is now ready for prime time. The team has done an amazing job of, basically, being on track to achieve that driver-out milestone by end of the year and to really have a solution that can start scaling.”
Ron’s new role allows him to take a bigger step toward the carrier side to improve their networks more fundamentally. He has been speaking with chief supply chain officers and carriers the past few months and has heard positive feedback. He noted that these industry players are ready to implement or scale autonomous supply chain technology.
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“Waabi is entering a pivotal new phase as we transition from pioneering our technology to driving commercial adoption in the trucking industry,” Urtasun said. “Lior brings that rare combination of technical expertise, deep industry knowledge and proven execution — he truly understands the nuances, challenges and opportunities within trucking, and how breakthrough technology can unlock the industry’s full potential.”
Urtasun added that Ron will be an invaluable addition who will enable the executive team to accelerate commercialization at scale given his previous experience scaling an end-to-end logistics platform from founding to billions of dollars of annual revenue. That involves bringing autonomous solutions to market in a way that creates real value for customers and partners.
“With autonomy, you can take those assets and move them from seven or eight hours a day to 20 hours a day,” Ron said. “You can take those assets, having to be highly reliable just because of the nature of supply chains, and make them now programmatically more reliable.
Nils Jaeger of Volvo Autonomous Solutions says self-driving trucks will complement the industry’s workforce as freight demand grows. Tune in above or by going to .
“So, you start really affecting, in a much deeper way, supply chains and the ability to make supply chains more optimal. And that’s what drew me into this opportunity versus everything else, just the impact is so much deeper and significant if you look over the next decade.”
Ron will focus on shaping a go-to-market strategy and expanding key strategic partnerships. He also will guide the company through the organizational transformation that comes with rapid growth while preparing for commercialization at scale.
“It’s time now to scale, and it’s really now time to bring the solution that Waabi has ready to the market,” Ron said. “First and foremost, turning this into a commercial-ready solution for shippers and carriers that meet them where they’re at.
“I’m going to be meeting with carriers that are going to implement autonomy into the fleet. I’m going to meet, and my team is going to meet, shippers, and we’re going to talk about how to transform the supply chain over the next five years to be autonomy ready.”
Waabi and Uber Freight previously entered a strategic partnership to bring Waabi Driver capacity to the Uber Freight network in 2023. The company more recently revealed several technical breakthroughs that it views as fundamentally reshaping safety standards for the autonomous vehicle industry. Waabi previously announced a strategic partnership with Volvo Autonomous Solutions focused on the development and deployment of driverless trucks.
