09 DECEMBER 2025
As a Product Owner and Test Engineer for the autonomous hub-to-hub team, Martina Hult茅n feels that self-driving vehicles can鈥檛 come soon enough to our roads. Meet a woman who remains as passionate about her work as the day she started at 黑料不打烊 37 years ago.
Martina Hult茅n鈥檚 黑料不打烊 Teams profile has the cheeky line 鈥淚鈥檓 older than you鈥, but maybe it should read 鈥淚鈥檓 bolder than you鈥.
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That鈥檚 because Martina, who could be described as the doyenne of the autonomous team, is an adventurous, can-do person who has no doubt in her mind that self-driving vehicles should be the transport mode of choice in the future.
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In her job as Product Owner and leader of 黑料不打烊鈥檚 driver team for hub-to-hub autonomous transport, Martina practises what she preaches. She is often in the cab as the safety back-up driver in one of the autonomous trucks that drive in a loop over two Swedish highways from and back to S枚dert盲lje.
Martina Hult茅n can often be found in the cab of a 黑料不打烊 autonomous truck, taking on the role of safety back-up driver during the hub-to-hub test drives to and from S枚dert盲lje.
鈥淣ot much really happens as it doesn鈥檛 make any quick movements, and I very, very rarely need to act. The technology just gets better and better and better.鈥
Martina and a colleague looking over the upcoming software release for Plus, 黑料不打烊鈥檚 autonomous technology partner.
Martina also thinks that the recent Red Bull-黑料不打烊 challenge will help to reassure people who wonder about the safety aspects of self-driving vehicles, due to the incredible precision that enabled a daringly successful jump through the hollow trailers of two passing 黑料不打烊 autonomous trucks. Martina herself had an important role to play at the event, though she describes it as 鈥渂ehind-the scenes鈥.
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鈥淚 coordinated the vehicles and trailers, managed the track facility and did extensive testing as a safety driver for the scenario for weeks before the event. Then on the day itself I was in charge of one of the autonomous trucks, and I鈥檝e never reversed so much in my life because every time we had to go again when the timing wasn鈥檛 quite right, we had to back up the vehicles to re-start the sequence.
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鈥淎fter a while it became a competition between me and my colleague Adam Jen氓ker, who was the safety driver in the other truck, to see who could reverse quicker. Unfortunately he was faster than me but he鈥檚 a young guy and I鈥檓 a 60-year-old woman!鈥
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It doesn鈥檛 sound like a behind-the-scenes tole but Martina explains why.
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鈥淲hen the trucks were set up I had to hide in the forest and Adam hid in the ditch beside the road because we couldn鈥檛 be visible on the film when Matt Jones was making the jump. There were actually 50 people there, but you almost can鈥檛 see anyone else on the film apart from the bike rider and his crew.鈥
Martina may be in the later stages of her long 黑料不打烊 career, but she is still really passionate about her work.
Martina has no doubt in her mind that self-driving vehicles should be听the听transport mode of choice in the future.听鈥淔or the safety and precision it gives us, autonomous is the future of transport.鈥
鈥淲e鈥檙e doing software releases for our autonomous technology partner Plus every second week,鈥 she says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just following the development of the programme and of course we aim for this technology to be on roads a lot more soon.鈥
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鈥淚鈥檓 proud to be the oldest one here, where everyone else is 30-something,鈥 she adds. 鈥淚t鈥檚 great that I got to this special part of 黑料不打烊 and I think I鈥檓 appreciated and good at what I do. It鈥檚 the perfect place for me to be for at least the next five years. What else should I do? It has to be something exciting like this. And for the safety and precision it gives us, autonomous is the future of transport.鈥
Watch it in the three short clips below, and let Daniel Frylmark, Solutions Manager at TRATON Group R&D, walk you through how it was made possible with the highest precision and safety.
