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Daimler Trucks is taking its next step in the world of self-driving trucks. This morning, the company announced an investment in a Blacksburg, Va.-based startup known as Torc Robotics.

In January, Daimler Trucks, a division of Daimler AG (ticker: DAI.Germany), said it was investing $570 million in the coming years “to bring highly automated trucks (SAE level 4) to the road within a decade.”

Daimler’s investment will give it a majority stake in Torc. Specific terms were not disclosed. Torc was founded in 2005 and has about 100 employees. The company has previously partnered with Caterpillar (CAT) to create autonomous mining trucks.

Under the terms of the Daimler investment, Torc will continue to develop its Asimov self-driving software at its Blacksburg, Va., facility while working closely with Daimler Trucks North America’s (DTNA) research-and-development team in Portland, Ore. DTNA is working on a truck chassis for automated vehicles.

The companies are marrying Torc’s software with Daimler’s hardware development, Daimler Trucks Chief Executive Roger Nielsen told Barron’s in a phone interview. The investment, he said, is Daimler Trucks’ largest since the company got into the autonomous driving market in 2015.

Daimler’s Freightliner Cascadia truck already offers so-called Level 2 automation. The system is able to independently brake, accelerate, and steer. Daimler’s half-billion investment program is intended to take its autonomous driving to Level 4, in which trucks can travel certain roads without intervention from the driver.

Driverless technology is expensive and hard because of regulatory and safety issues, to name just two potential road blocks. But a fleet of companies are pursuing the market with zeal as more Americans grow accustomed to traveling in cars without being behind the wheel and transportation systems embrace the technology.

The global self-driving vehicle market is projected to reach $172.3 billion by 2024, according to a Research and Markets report on Wednesday.

Write to Jon Swartz at jon.swartz@barrons.com