Kodiak Robotics And U.S. Xpress To Make Autonomous Freight Runs From Dallas To Atlanta

Kodiak Robotics, a developer of self-driving trucks, said Tuesday it will work with U.S. Xpress, operator of one of the largest U.S. carrier fleets, to begin delivering freight autonomously between Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta.

Last month, CEVA Logistics announced it was working with Kodiak to deliver freight autonomously on routes from Dallas-Fort Worth to Austin and from Dallas-Fort Worth to Oklahoma City.

A Kodiak truck and U.S. Xpress trailers last month completed a pilot run of four round trips covering about 6,350 miles, between the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and greater Atlanta.

The truck ran 24 hours a day for 131 hours, for more than five days. Four professional Kodiak drivers rode in the trucks. By increasing the number of hours a truck can be driven per day, autonomous trucks can enable carriers to carry more freight with fewer trucks. That results in greater revenue at lower cost.

“We fundamentally believe that Kodiak’s autonomous technology will allow us to scale our fleet while increasing truck utilization compared to a human-driven truck,” saod Eric Fuller, U.S. Xpress CEO, said in a statement. “Our strategic partnership is helping both of our teams identify ways to quickly integrate and scale autonomous technology into our fleet once it is commercially available.”

U.S. Xpress chose the Dallas-to-Atlanta route because it is longer than what human drivers can cover in a day under federal safety regulations, but it is too short to have a team of drivers cover it economically.

The cooperative venture marks the first autonomous freight delivery between these two markets.

With other partners, Kodiak has run autonomous deliveries between Dallas and Houston since 2019, and on the 280-route connecting Dallas and San Antonio since mid-2021.

The partnership with Ceva Logistics began running between Dallas and Oklahoma City in Febuary 2022.

Based in Mountain View, Calif., Kodiak was founded in 2018 by Don Burnette and venture capitalist Pax Eshel.

Last November, the company announced that it raised $125 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total fundraising to $165 million.

U.S. Xpress also is working with Aurora Innovations, another autonomous technology developer, that plans to begin a driverless commercial semi-truck service in 2023. The two companies are studying the best ways to use autonomous technology to overcome a driver shortage and solve supply chain disruptions.

Aurora is using data from U.S. Xpress’s digital platform, called Variant, to understand which routes would be most appropriate for the autonomous features.