Kodiak AI said Tuesday it plans to launch unsupervised driverless long-haul service on a 219-mile stretch of Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston by the end of the year, with Ikea as a launch customer.
The autonomous trucking company has been working toward a driverless long-haul launch since the fourth quarter of 2025, shortly after it went public. Since then, Kodiak has raised its autonomous readiness measure, known as ARM, for the long-haul domain to 93%. The company considers itself ready for driverless service once that metric reaches 100%. Its industrial fleet, operated by Atlas Energy Solutions in the Permian Basin of West Texas and eastern New Mexico, has already met that threshold.
Kodiak has hauled freight between the two Texas metro areas since 2019 with safety drivers in the cab. The company said it has delivered more than 1,300 loads for Ikea over the last four years and has logged more than 750,000 autonomous miles for the retailer with a safety observer on board.
The Texas announcement follows a regulatory step in California. State regulators approved Kodiak's heavy-duty autonomous vehicle testing permit, which allows the company to haul perishable goods for long-haul freight company DTL Transport along Interstate 5 and State Route 99. A safety driver will stay behind the wheel at first, and California's phased permitting process could eventually allow Kodiak to operate without one.
The two projects place Kodiak in a Texas corridor it has served for seven years and in a California program that moves in stages, with each state setting its own conditions for driverless operation.
Source: Trucking Dive - https://www.truckingdive.com/news/kodiak-targets-year-end-driverless-launch-on-dallas-houston-lane-with-ikea/831495/