An autonomous vehicle (AV) startup called ThorDrive recently introduced commercial vehicle services featuring its autonomous vehicle technology.

In partnership with Hassett ACE Hardware, the initial service will support select residents of a retirement community in Palo Alto, California, as well as fire departments in the city.

ThorDrive is utilizing Velodyne Lidar sensors for the services, which will provide rich data content for ThorDrive’s AV software.

“ThorDrive is very pleased to be working with Velodyne because of their commitment to continuous innovation and focus on manufacturing at scale,” says Farshid Arman, COO, ThorDrive.

“Velodyne has been an invaluable collaborator and provides the reliable product and on-time delivery we need to develop our full stack autonomous driving software to our customers’ choice of commercial vehicles.”

The ThorDrive platform has been designed to help AVs operate in dense urban environments, thanks to providing highly accurate sensor fusion, high-precision localization, and detailed path planning. The platform can build maps for hyperlocal areas, such as private parking lots, and it has been demonstrated to support proof-of-concept tests quickly and cost effectively.

Since 2010, ThorDrive has been using Velodyne lidar sensors to develop its autonomous driving technology. ThorDrive equips Ford vans with its AV technology, and they will be deployed as a fleet of autonomous vehicles across the U.S. to address commercial and logistics markets.

“We are excited to provide groundbreaking autonomous driving technology that is pioneering a new way to provide value-added services in logistics processes,” says Seung-Woo Seo, founder of ThorDrive.