According to an anonymous source from the No Limits Telegram channel, the development of the unmanned KamAZ truck has been put on hold due to a total reduction in funding against the backdrop of falling sales in the truck segment. KamAZ has not officially confirmed this information. The source also reported a curious episode - not officially confirmed: the prototype of the drone was allegedly lost, and found by a GPS sensor at an abandoned training ground. According to the same data, Kamaz Tech employees are leaving for other companies - not officially confirmed.
History of unmanned KamAZ: ten years of development
The development of the unmanned KamAZ truck began in 2015 in collaboration with Cognitive Technologies. Wikipedia The Ministry of Education and Science allocated 300 million rubles for the project, and KamAZ itself invested another 90 million. It was planned to create a production model by 2020.
The first trip of the prototype based on KamAZ-5350 took place at the training ground in Naberezhnye Chelny: the truck started off, turned, and reacted to obstacles at speeds up to 10 km/h.
In 2019, KamAZ broke off its partnership with Cognitive Technologies and VIST Group and decided to develop drones on its own. In the same year, tests of the Odyssey version began at the factory test site. In 2023, unmanned KamAZ vehicles passed tests beyond the Arctic Circle on the Gydan Peninsula and drove along the M11 highway as part of the Unmanned Logistics Corridors project.
If the anonymous source's information is confirmed, the project, in which state and corporate funds have been invested over ten years and which has reached commercial trials on federal highways, will be frozen at the moment of greatest technical maturity.
Earlier www1.ru reported that the unmanned dump truck KAMAZ-65119 began testing at a granite quarry in the DPR.
