In a story of man vs motor, Scania’s autonomously driven trucks gave Red Bull Athlete and mountain biker, Matt Jones, the opportunity to become the first person to jump through two moving trucks.
This world first, completed at an airfield close to Scania’s home in Södertälje, Sweden, was a true test of both innovation and precision, as both the rider and the trucks needed to be in perfect sync for the jump to happen safely.
Having originally sketched the idea down in a notepad, Matt chose to use Scania’s self-driving trucks, as the accuracy and dependability of this cutting-edge AI-based technology, would guarantee Matt with the window of less than a second to make the jump.
Speaking about the challenge, Peter Hafmar, head of autonomous solutions at Scania, said: “What an incredible feat and world first to be involved with. It was a real team effort from the Scania and Red Bull teams, with months of working together to make Matt’s impossible’ vision a reality.
“You need to remember; he has just a blink of an eye to make this jump. With no margin for error, the team had to be so precise and calculated throughout. Thanks to our autonomous trucks, we could create a window of opportunity needed for Matt to do this kind of jump. Seeing first-hand the precision and safety that Scania’s autonomous trucks and technology has brought to this challenge fills us with immense pride,” he continued.
“Transport is a cornerstone of our daily lives, and with that comes the responsibility to make sure goods arrive to the right person or company in the most safe and efficient way. This feat gives everyone a glimpse of what autonomous technology is capable of – delivering precision and safety that you can count on.”
Red Bull Athlete Matt Jones added: “I tried to turn my brain off and become autonomous, I had full faith in the technology and maths. I was completely locked in staring at the road ahead with the trucks in my peripheral vision, knowing that they were going to cross over each other and reveal the gap I was going to jump through.
“When I got halfway up the ramp and the trucks had initially gone past each other, I felt huge adrenaline because I could see the target on the other side. I instantly went from feeling numb to being flooded with adrenaline, it was nothing like I’ve experienced before.
“After completing the jump I experienced so many emotions. I had a sense of relief, pride and accomplishment in myself, but also so much appreciation and respect for the Red Bull team and Scania to make all of this possible.”
After months of meticulous planning, technical and physical rehearsals and safety checks to prepare, this feat saw the Scania, Red Bull and PlusAI teams collaborate and share their creativity, engineering expertise and determination to turn an ‘impossible’ vision into a reality.
“This wasn’t a stunt for the sake of entertainment,” said a PlusAI spokesperson. “It was a very real, months-long technical validation exercise that put our virtual driver’s safety, awareness, and precision to the test under extremely tight tolerances. Two SuperDrive-integrated Scania trucks executed the maneuver fully autonomously, moving toward each other in perfect sync to create a sub-second window for the jump. The challenge required repeatable, sub-decimeter path holding, reliable sensing in dynamic conditions, and real-time prediction to maintain safe and consistent behavior across every rehearsal run. This is the same virtual driver PlusAI is validating with OEM partners as it progresses toward factory-built autonomous trucks targeted for 2027.”
Scania’s autonomous mining trucks have been operating in Rio Tinto’s mine in Australia since 2018, and have been available to commercially buy since 2024. The company says its self-driving technology will soon be moving onto highways, enabling hub-to-hub freight transport. In fact, Scania is already actively testing on European roads, in partnership with PlusAI.
