Safety is our guiding principle and our promise—every mile matters as we drive autonomy forward.

Safety

Safety at work.

Our organization-wide Safety Management System (SMS) works to manage safety risks for all of our products and services.

01
Company Policy
Our executive team is committed to safety as our leading principle.
02
Risk Management
We continually identify, analyze, assess, and mitigate our safety risks.
03
Safety Assurance
We evaluate our processes, controls and best practices to ensure our continuous improvement.
04
Safety Promotion
We foster a positive and just safety culture through training, communication, and proactive actions.

Safety by the numbers.

Accident-free miles
1M+

Autonomous miles without an at-fault incident

Proven experience
8

Years of autonomous driving experience.

Licensed & exempt
1st

And only AV to receive NHTSA-approved exemption and 1st deployment permit ever granted by CA DMV.

Accident-free miles
1M+

Autonomous miles without an at-fault incident

Proven experience
8

Years of autonomous driving experience.

Licensed & exempt
1st

And only AV to receive NHTSA-approved exemption and 1st deployment permit ever granted by CA DMV.

Systems verification & validation.

Nuro’s deployments undergo extensive additional testing in dozens of validation categories before approval for L4 driverless operations.

Establish goals

A-01

As a first step, we establish stakeholder goals from Commercialization, Safety, Legal, and Policy such that our vehicles are good citizens of shared roads. 

End-to-End System Requirements & Metrics

A-02

Those goals are then decomposed into requirements, and custom metrics are developed to quantify our AI Driver’s end-to-end performance on our selected platform.

System Performance

A-03

Performance is also quantified by using lower-level metrics to characterize behavioral readiness in specific operational design domains (ODDs).

Module Requirements & Development

A-04

We use module-level metrics to iterate with developers and capture the impact of individual modules on robot behavior.

Module Validation

B-04

Measures the performance and quantifies readiness of modules like routing and learned mapping on behavior.

System Verification

B-03

Measures the performance and quantifies readiness of the autonomy’s behavior in deployment ODDs.

System Validation

B-02

Measures the performance and quantifies readiness of our Autonomous Vehicles on public roads.

Deployment

B-01

Our decision to launch is based on our verified and validated Autonomous Vehicles meeting our stakeholder goals. Throughout the deployment, we monitor and improve on-road performance.

AI-driven autonomy for
enhanced safety.

Software Architecture

Nuro's autonomous vehicles leverage state-of-the-art AI technology to mimic natural driving behavior while prioritizing safety. Our comprehensive autonomy stack includes AI-driven mapping, a unified foundation model for perception, and AI-first behavior enabling natural driving with Level 4 safety standards. The software continuously analyzes surroundings, predicts scenarios, and makes safety-first decisions. Our reliable control system, with its modular design and proprietary hardware, ensures precise and safe operation across diverse driving conditions.

Multimodal testing.

We take a rigorous and conservative approach to testing and deployment, ensuring our vehicles are thoroughly validated and ready for safe public road operation.

Simulation
We collect real-world driving data and create virtual simulations to assess our autonomy’s performance, making system adjustments and retesting after any failures until successful.
Track testing
Nuro zero-occupant vehicles navigate real-world conditions on a closed course, with data fed into large-scale simulations to improve Driver performance and reliability.
On-road
We conduct on-road testing with sensor-equipped vehicles and trained operators, and after successful simulation and real-world trials, deploy Nuro Driver-enabled fleets on public roads.

Operational safety.

Operational safety is where our safety controls and requirements are tested in real-world driving scenarios—by our people and processes.

Focus on people
01
Safety starts with recruiting individuals who share our dedication to operational excellence. We provide comprehensive onboarding, continuous training, and the necessary resources to ensure our team operates safely and effectively. Our strong operational safety culture encourages proactive engagement, reporting, and continuous improvement, making safety a shared responsibility.
Follow the process
02
We follow an SMS that involves continual identification, analysis, assessment, mitigation, and monitoring of safety risks. Our comprehensive emergency response plan ensures swift and effective action in the event of any incident or accident. This approach ensures we maintain the highest safety standards, protecting our team and the communities in which we operate.

Safety FAQs

Explore more.

1st

Company

And only autonomous vehicle exemption granted by NHTSA.
Learn about how Nuro is using the best Imitation and Reinforcement Learning for safe autonomous driving.
AI Research @ Nuro
Cyclist exiting driveway without looking.
Nuro Driver™ Showcase
Join Nuro in redefining the future of mobility.
Careers
Learn about Nuro’s in-house compiler framework called Faster Than Light (FTL) that helps the Nuro Driver™ execute with low latency and high computational precision.
AI Research @ Nuro
1st

Company

And only autonomous vehicle exemption granted by NHTSA.
Learn about how Nuro is using the best Imitation and Reinforcement Learning for safe autonomous driving.
AI Research @ Nuro
Cyclist exiting driveway without looking.
Nuro Driver™ Showcase