Kodiak Robotics has officially handed off two autonomous trucks to customer Atlas Energy Solutions, marking the startup’s first commercial launch.
Atlas, a provider of proppant (i.e., sand) and oilfield logistics, received its first Kodiak-equipped trucks in December and began driverless operations in an off-road environment in West Texas’s remote Permian Basin shortly after. The company has already delivered 100 loads using self-driving trucks without a human safety driver behind the wheel, according to Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette.
“This is the first time, as far as we’re aware, that the customer is owning and operating the driverless vehicle, instead of the AV company, and we think this is the model of the future,” Burnette told TechCrunch.
Until now, Kodiak — and its competitors in the space like Aurora Innovation and Waabi — has performed commercial pilots for customers on highways with human safety drivers behind the wheel. During these pilots, Kodiak-owned trucks ran freight on behalf of shippers or carriers. The goal, though, is to sell the AI Driver-as-a-Solution to companies like Atlas. In other words, Kodiak and others don’t want to run their own shipping operations in the long run, but rather focus on selling the self-driving technology.
For comparison, in the robotaxi industry, companies like Waymo and formerly Cruise have owned and operated their own ride-hail services, but Waymo’s recent partnerships with Uber and Moovit signal that the company may eventually bow out of operating such services, too.
Kodiak first announced its partnership with Atlas in July 2024 after the two completed Kodiak’s first driverless run delivering frac sand in West Texas’s remote Permian Basin – an unstructured, off-road environment. While Kodiak still has active pilots running freight on highways and plans to pursue long-haul autonomous trucking, the Atlas deal is a key part of the startup’s near-term go-to-market strategy.
Off-road autonomy has its own set of unique challenges – like a constantly changing landscape and no HD maps to rely on – but it presents a faster path to revenue than highway driving, according Burnette.
And that bet is already bearing fruit.
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