Pilot, Kodiak Partner To Build Service Centers For Autonomous Trucks

Just weeks after announcing an agreement with General MotorsGM
Co. to develop a nationwide electric vehicle recharging network, Pilot Company, North America’s largest operator of highway travel centers is taking another big step to grow beyond truck stops to serve new, high-tech customer segments.

The Knoxville, Tenn.,-based company and autonomous trucking company Kodiak Robotics Inc. announced Tuesday, a “strategic agreement” to develop services for self-driving trucks at Pilot and Flying J travel centers.

The first such autonomous truckport is being built at a Pilot center near Atlanta, Ga. where the companies will evaluate what services make the most sense for self-driving trucks.

In an interview with Forbes.com, Pilot vice president of strategy and business development John Tully imagined autonomous truckports wouldn’t look much different than the rest of the companies locations, but there’s a lot both Pilot and Kodiak need to learn.

“How do we provide the services for autonomous vehicles that only enhance the services we’re currently providing for existing customers,” said Tully. “What we’re trying to understand is if it’s an autonomous vehicle or vehicle in an autonomous mode coming in and out of our stations, how do we allow that in a way that’s safe and fast and reliable?”

Some of the services being looked at include spaces to pick-up and drop-off autonomous trucking loads, inspections, maintain and refuel trucks and data transferring.

As part of the deal, Pilot is taking a minority interest in Kodiak and joining its board, according to Tully, who said specific terms are confidential.

For Mountain View, Calif.-based Kodiak the move is in sync with that company’s own fast track growth.

Today, Kodiak serves customers along a total of six routes between: Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Oklahoma City, Atlanta, and Jacksonville, Fla.

“The Oklahoma City, Atlanta, and Jacksonville routes were all announced over the course of 2022, as we dramatically expanded our coverage area across the freight-rich southern half of the United States,” said Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette in emailed responses to Forbes.com questions. “This expansion has been driven by the needs of our customers and powered by our unique sparse mapping approach.”

Kodiak trucks are purpose-built to operate at level four autonomy meaning no-driver. That’s the goal, said Burnette who said right now Kodiak trucks, “operate autonomously on the highway portion of the route, with a safety driver behind the wheel actively monitoring the truck and the road. Our trucks are designed to operate autonomously day and night, in all circumstances they encounter on the highway, including, stop and go traffic, merges, construction zones, vehicles on shoulder, various weather conditions and more.”

For Pilot Company the move to service self-driving commercial trucks comes just over a month after the July 14th announcement it will work with GM to boost adoption of battery electric vehicles by installing 2,000 DC fast-charging stalls at 500 Pilot and Flying J locations. The stalls will be co-branded Pilot Flying J and Ultium Charge 360.

The partnerships with both GM and Kodiak come as Pilot considers further expansion and opportunity.

“How do we take advantage of what we have now and bring in a new customer base that is that EV customer on the passenger side and in so doing what can we learn in doing that may or may not be relevant should EVs become a class seven, class eight vehicle mode of transportation or does that become hydrogen and what can we learn about that?,” surmised Tully.

Indeed, Tully said both his company and its customers are faced with the demand for safer, more reliable and greener travel and how to support those demands, saying, “There’s a lot our customers need to figure out over the next tomorrow and we’re trying to do the same thing.”