class-8-trucks
(2)
Mars Auto
Mars Auto is a South Korean AI company building self-driving Class 8 trucks for long-haul freight. Founded in 2017 by KAIST computer scientists Ilsu Park and Gyuri Im, it uses a vision-only, end-to-end AI driving agent - seven cameras and a single neural network, with no LiDAR and no HD maps - that can be retrofitted onto existing trucks. Mars Auto ran the first commercial long-haul autonomous freight in Korea in 2023 and began paid U.S. operations from a Texas base in 2024, aiming to deploy fully unmanned trucks by 2028.
Verne
Verne is a San Francisco climate-tech company building high-density cryo-compressed hydrogen (CcH2) storage and power systems. Founded in 2020 by Stanford and UC-Berkeley alumni, Verne developed a method to store hydrogen at up to 73 g/L - roughly 33% denser than liquid hydrogen and 87% denser than 700-bar compressed gas - without the cost of full liquefaction. After proving the technology on the world's first CcH2-powered Class 8 truck in 2024, Verne has expanded into turnkey zero-emission on-site power, targeting data centers, ports, construction sites and EV charging with modular hydrogen-to-power systems.