Torc Robotics was named Company of the Year by the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council on Thursday evening, capping off a whirlwind year for an autonomous vehicle business with a growing national profile.
Torc has been around since 2005, but until recently almost exclusively built autonomous equipment for military and mining applications. But the company shed its low profile last summer, and came out as a competitor in the increasingly crowded market for self-driving consumer vehicles.
Since then, the 80-person Blacksburg startup has completed several autonomous cross-country drives. It presented at the famed Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and invited The Roanoke Times along for a test drive. The company has been featured in TechCrunch, AutoWeek and Jalopnik.
