Ottomotto

Ottomotto LLC

Company type	Private
Industry	Autonomous vehicle technology
Founded	January 2016 (2016-01)
Founder	Lior Ron, Anthony Levandowski
Defunct	2017
Fate	Acquired by Uber, brand retired in 2017, project discontinued in 2018
Headquarters	San Francisco , United States
Area served	United States
Key people	Lior Ron, Anthony Levandowski, Claire Delaunay, Don Burnette
Products	Autonomous driving technology for semi-trucks (hardware retrofit kits)
Number of employees	90 (2016)
Parent	Uber (from August 2016)

Ottomotto LLC, operating under the trade name Otto, was a U.S.-based company specializing in autonomous driving technology, established in January 2016 by Lior Ron and Anthony Levandowski. Headquartered in San Francisco, the firm had expanded its workforce to 90 employees by August 2016. Otto focused on equipping semi-trucks with advanced radar, camera, and lidar sensor systems to facilitate self-driving capabilities. In August 2016, Uber acquired the company. Co-founder Lior Ron anticipated deploying fleets of autonomous trucks on public roads by early 2017; however, this objective was not achieved prior to the company's dissolution.

History

Otto emerged in January 2016 as part of a new generation of enterprises dedicated to developing autonomous vehicle technology. The founding team included Anthony Levandowski, previously involved with Google's self-driving car initiative, and Lior Ron, who formerly led product efforts at Google Maps. Claire Delaunay was responsible for software development, while Don Burnette also joined from Google's self-driving car division. By August 2016, Otto’s personnel had grown to include 90 professionals drawn from companies such as Google, Apple, Tesla, Logitech, and academic backgrounds like Stanford University. The company operated out of a garage located in San Francisco's South of Market district.

By mid-2016, Otto had successfully outfitted five Volvo 780 semi-trucks with its autonomous driving technology for testing on interstate highways.

Uber acquired Otto in August 2016 for an estimated $680 million. Post-acquisition, Otto functioned as an independent unit within Uber, with Levandowski overseeing both Otto and Uber’s self-driving vehicle division.

In October 2016, an Otto-equipped truck completed a driverless trip spanning 132 miles in Colorado without human assistance, setting a Guinness World Record for the longest continuous autonomous semi-truck journey.

In February 2017, Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, initiated legal action against Uber alleging that Levandowski had downloaded 9.7 GB of proprietary Waymo data prior to founding Otto. The lawsuit resulted in restrictions barring Levandowski from working on critical lidar technology at Uber and mandated disclosure of related communications.

Separately, Clearpath Robotics filed a trademark infringement claim against Ottomotto LLC concerning the OTTO brand; this case was dismissed in February 2017. Following this dispute, Uber retired the Otto brand name in May 2017.

By July 2018, Uber discontinued the Otto project to concentrate efforts on autonomous passenger vehicles rather than commercial trucks.

Technology and goals

Otto did not produce trucks but developed retrofit hardware kits installed at service centers or manufacturing facilities. Their system resembled those created by Google and Nissan and integrated radar units, cameras, and lidar sensors into trucks.

Initially, Otto intended to allow truck drivers to rest during extended hauls by automating portions of their routes. This approach aimed to shorten delivery times by enabling near-continuous driving and bypassing the legal restriction limiting manual driving to 11 hours per day. The technology sought to enhance both operational efficiency and safety by permitting drivers to rest while the vehicle operated autonomously. In 2016, Levandowski articulated the vision: "Our goal is to make trucks drive as humanly as possible, but with the reliability of machines."

According to John Markoff of The New York Times, Otto prioritized trucks over passenger cars because commercial trucks represent 5.6% of total vehicle miles traveled but account for 9.5% of highway fatalities. CEO David Kirkpatrick observed that public acceptance of automated trucking was higher due to common perceptions about unsafe truck driving practices. Enhancing safety was central to Otto’s mission; co-founder Ron emphasized: "We want to get the technology to the point where it's safe to let the driver rest and sleep in his cabin and we can drive for him, exit to exit."

Ultimately, Otto aimed for full autonomy across the extensive U.S. interstate highway network covering approximately 220,000 miles, although regulatory hurdles existed in certain states such as California. The company planned to compile safety data to substantiate the advantages of its autonomous systems.

See also

• Starsky Robotics