Driverless 18-wheel truck set for first route in 2024

Kodiak Robotics plans to launch its self-driving truck out of Dallas sometime this year.

It will be the second company with driverless 18-wheeler technology to announce a route between Dallas and Houston. Aurora Innovation in Pittsburgh will launch the first phase of its trucking in the second half of this year.

The Kodiak Gen6 truck includes all the redundancy needed to launch driverless operations in 2024, including sensors, braking, and power.

It’s the first and only platform of its kind, with the automotive-grade safety redundancy necessary for driverless deployment on public roads. pic.twitter.com/3C03yb7FYZ

— Kodiak (@KodiakRobotics) January 11, 2024

Already, Kodiak has used these trucks across the country with only safety drivers still in the cab. This newest version, the model’s sixth generation, will remove the need for one as Texas law allows for cars to drive without human operators.

“Over the course of 2.5 million miles, we’ve successfully demonstrated that our self-driving trucks can withstand the harsh environment of long-haul trucking from both a platform integrity and a software perspective,” Kodiak CEO and founder Don Burnette said in a statement. “This truck fundamentally demonstrates that we’ve done the work necessary to safely handle driverless operations.”

The Teamsters Union has openly opposed self-driving vehicles due to its representation of truck drivers.

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“Lawmakers in Austin should recognize that their voters do not want to be on the road with driverless cars or trucks,” Teamsters Southern Region Vice President Brent Taylor said in a statement last year. “We call on the legislature to seize the opportunity to pass a bill requiring human operators in all commercial vehicles.”

Kodiak’s truck uses four light detection and ranging sensors, six radar sensors, and 12 cameras to enable the truck to run autonomously. These combined can read construction signs to determine how the truck should drive and capture the sounds of emergency vehicles if needed.

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