Driverless Long-Haul Trucking News Roundup: New Partners, New Plans

There’s been so much news in the driverless truck space that it’s time for another Truck Automation Roundup article. Significant new revelations for long haul and as well as logistics hubs have come to the fore.

Let’s roll!

Aurora Puts On A Show

In mid-March, Aurora hosted an Investor Day event at its Pittsburgh headquarters, including talks from company leadership as well as from their key partners. Intriguing statements were made that added meat to the bones of their rollout and ramp-up plans.

Aurora’s CEO and Co-Founder Chris Urmson reported that at the end of January, Aurora had seven freight carrier customers. Of this group, representatives from Hirschbach and Werner also spoke at the event, emphasizing how they see autonomous trucking as “the new way to truck.” Cumulatively, Aurora has run 4300 loads for the full set of partners, racking up over one million miles. Deliveries were “nearly 100% on-time.” Mr. Urmson added that in 2024 Aurora will be doubling the number of loads per week.

Adding an additional perspective, I’ve again called on my go-to guy in the business and operational side of autonomous trucking, Lee White. Based on his long career in deploying advanced transportation technology in complicated and demanding freight networks, he now supports stakeholders in the trucking industry ecosystem to prepare for the adoption, integration and scaling of AV trucking in their operations.

Lee White noted comments from Werner’s Daragh Mahon about “what else is needed” to adopt AV tech. Mr. Mahon said Werner plans on having two ultra-safe drivers (million milers) ride in the Aurora vehicle until they declare it safe…. whether that takes two weeks, two months, or longer.

Nils Jaeger, President of Volvo Autonomous Solutions, said at the event, “Volvo and Aurora are the emerging leaders in autonomous transportation. Jointly, we have the highest credibility, clear progress, and a clear roadmap to launch and scalable production. Together, we are building the strongest ecosystem in the AV space.” This robust statement fits nicely with the rollout of Volvo Trucks new generation of their VNL Class 8 truck – their first to be built from the ground up with redundant systems to support autonomous driving. Specifically, this means redundant computer, communication, energy storage, power management, motion management, steering, and brake systems.

Aurora’s Tier 1 partner, Continental, reiterated much of what they said at CES in January and provided details on how the process will work between Aurora, Conti, and truck manufacturer partners. Conti’s Jeremy McClain, VP of System and Software, Autonomous Mobility, laid out the path to commercializing autonomous trucks at scale. Conti will manufacture the Aurora Driver hardware and ship it to the truck manufacturer. The manufacturer will install the hardware onto product trucks rolling off the line intended for autonomy-ready customers. These vehicles are delivered to sales outlets where the freight carrier customers receive and take ownership of the autonomous trucks. In our discussions, Lee White observed that “Continental’s presentation provides the path with a reputable Tier One, automotive grade, upfit solution provider that will be fully supported by the OEM. This gives the industry a path to gradually scale in the commercial market.”

The factory models are due to roll off the assembly line in 2027, designed for 1M miles of operation. Aurora has stated they’ll be fielding their first fully driverless units by the end of the year. In fact, they have already taken delivery of two prototype autonomy-enabled truck platforms into their fleet: the Volvo VNL and the Peterbilt 579.

What happens between now and 2027? At the Investor Day event, Sterling Anderson, Aurora Co-Founder and CTO, laid out the plans this way: during 2024-25 the initial driverless trucks will be owned and operated by Aurora, in a Transport-as-a-Service mode. In 2026, Aurora trucks will be delivered to a select group of early customers, who will operate the trucks with Aurora offering Driver-as-a-Service. From 2027 onwards, the factory approach and typical sales channels are the path to market, such that Aurora is likely to retire their “we carry freight” mode. This makes business sense, since operating a fleet is capital-intensive and outside Aurora’s core autonomy offering. The serious revenue comes with DaaS.

But what are we talking about here, just a handful of fledgling trucks? Aurora said in their 4Q23 report that the initial driverless launch later this year (2024) will be with a fleet of around 20 trucks. OK, a modest but nevertheless significant number of units. What next? I put this question to Mr. Anderson, who proceeded to blow my mind. 2025 will see hundreds of trucks. 2026 will see thousands of trucks, and 2027, the year of factory builds, will see “many thousands” of trucks being rolled out to freight carriers.

More or less adding an Order of Magnitude increase year over year. Yeow!

All the talks were informative, but with a show like this, demos are de rigueur. Near their corporate offices in Pittsburgh, Aurora used their modest test track to show off how the Aurora Driver deals with unusual situations. Attendees saw and rode in the Peterbilt 579 model trucks equipped with the software and hardware that will be fielded later this year in their driverless debut.

Going all the way back to USDOT’s Demo ’97, I’ve been to hundreds of demonstrations showing smart vehicles encountering crash-imminent situations and handling them with aplomb. Aurora provided driverless rides to journalists which showed basic maneuvers, and then we observed as the trucks handled a challenging set of scenarios; a (dummy) pedestrian suddenly appeared; debris was strewn across the road; stopped by law enforcement; maintaining control after a triggered steer tire blowout; and handling aggressive cut-ins. In the debris-on-road sequence, the truck perceptively saw that it could move over one lane and thread in-between a mattress and a tire, rather than moving across two lanes to avoid the debris field altogether. In real driving, since options may be limited by traffic in other lanes, human-like nimbleness of this sort is impressive.

The star of the demo was the brave plastic horse who stood in the travel lane and played chicken with the robot truck. Since these truck robots are not programed to win the challenge, the horse won. Why the horse? The first driverless runs will be in Texas, so I suppose horse detection and avoidance has to be handled!

Videos and discussions of the varied demo maneuvers can be found here.

What about the business side, i.e. making money with this expensive technology? As current liquidity is expected to fund operations only into 4Q25, Aurora described their revenue roadmap this way:

• 2024 = Path to Commercialization

• 2024-2026 = Path to Gross Profit

• 2024 – 2027 = Path to Scale and Self-Funding

• 2028 = attaining 2B miles of moving freight with annual miles at 200-250K per truck, resulting in $1.3B revenue (positive free cash flow).

Aurora presented a case study focused on terminal-to-terminal operations from Fort Worth to Phoenix, a 1000 mile run. In today’s trucking world, one week of operations would bring revenue of $6900 to a single trucker. The Aurora Driver would bring in a whopping $18,400. That’s a 167% improvement. But that’s revenue; what about profit? For the same route, a trucker would typically see a profit of $150. The Aurora Driver would haul in $992 – a 560% higher profit.

I have a feeling Wall Street will look upon these numbers rather favorably.

But then again these are just numbers on a page. This timeline chart from Aurora sums up the many facets of their quest to scale up, which they assert will deliver this level of profitability.

As I hoped, Lee White dug deeper, making these key points:

“I think you will see a lot of movement of trucking fleets to run autonomously on the ‘tweeners’ length of haul, i.e. 600 to 800 mile runs that are difficult from a cost standpoint in their current networks.”

“Regarding the terminal-to-terminal numbers, Aurora is correct in their math as to what an AV truck is capable of doing for revenue per day versus a single driver limited by hours of service. Sleeper team fleets like CRST and Covenant can overcome that by switching drivers and keeping the trucks in motion. Provided we can complete the enhanced inspection (still some concerns about that) in a timely manner, the sleeper teams do take bio breaks and unit checks that the av trucks will not have to do. That means the AV truck should get a couple of more hours of revenue per day.”

“Another key call out is the final delivery and the first mile pick up. Right now, drivers deliver to the final store directly. In the terminal-to-terminal model, someone has to complete the final mile delivery. This is the hidden need for optimization to make the numbers work for the fleets. Referencing Mr. Mahon’s comments, this has to be proven for the fleets. ‘Day’ drivers will run final deliveries and need to connect to pick up loads to return to the terminal to make the math work for them. My math says we need to be able to use day drivers moving in and out at least two loads per hour to make the total AV network math work.”

“We are also going to be accelerating Preventative Maintenance Inspections (PMI’s). Instead of a twice-yearly maintenance cycle in a 130K mile truck, are you going to have maybe four PMI’s yearly in a 250K mile truck? And will the trucks have a four to five year life instead of a six year life?”

Kodiak Moving Fast Food

As presented at CES, Kodiak now has a truck platform equipped with the necessary redundancy to support driverless operations, which they say will go live later this year operating in a Transport-as-a-Service mode.

Kodiak’s customer acquisition team has been busy of late, with the company recently announcing they are working with Martin-Brower to autonomously deliver time-critical refrigerated freight for quick service restaurants. This is a long-running collaboration, with Kodiak completing over 600 autonomous deliveries for Martin-Brower since 2022. Kodiak’s safety-driver-supervised autonomous trucks travel 1,600 miles per week between Dallas and Oklahoma City for Martin-Brower and overall they have traveled 120,000 miles for the company since the inception of the partnership.

Talk about flying under the radar! That’s a significant and serious commitment for both companies. This is just another example that the info that really matters for most of the AV startups is not public, making it hard to evaluate them based only on public information.

During the AV trucking froth of the last decade, Martin-Brower was one of the first freight movers to show serious interest in implementing autonomy in their on-road operations. They generally stayed out of the limelight, testing and evaluating several offeror’s tech. Over the years, the company seemed to be poised to be one of the first truck fleets to deploy driverless. Now their chosen AV partner has been revealed.

Kodiak operates what Martin Brower calls a “shuttle lane,” where autonomous trucks (currently with safety drivers) shuttle full trailers between major hubs while local drivers handle distribution of goods to multiple restaurants, including two of the top five largest fast food chains in the United States. In the freight biz, Martin-Brower is well known as the go-to trucking firm supporting almost 4,000 McDonald’s restaurants and nearly 400 Chipotle locations.

Now Martin-Brower and Kodiak are exploring additional shuttle lane opportunities.

“Your next order of fries may have traveled on a Kodiak truck,” said Don Burnette, founder and CEO, Kodiak. “Autonomous trucks are well-suited to the difficult work of long-haul driving, while allowing our partners’ local drivers to handle last-mile deliveries and provide a personal touch for customers. Martin Brower’s shuttle lane model is an ideal application for Kodiak that enables us to demonstrate the value of our technology within our customers’ existing networks.”

“We chose Kodiak because we share a mutual commitment to safety and customer service,” said Mark Grittner, Director – Global Capital, Fleet & Facilities, Martin Brower. “By working together, we are able to benefit from the safety, reliability and efficiency provided by Kodiak’s autonomous technology while also ensuring our local drivers can continue to provide the best-in-class customer service that is foundational to Martin Brower’s reputation.”

Martin-Brower is owned by Reyes Holdings, which operates 78 warehouses in 18 countries including Canada, Brazil, Mexico, the U.S., and the U.K. With this significant international footprint, they could be in the vanguard of working with governments to enable allowance of automated driving overseas.

Martin-Brower is not Kodiak’s only road freight partner. Kodiak’s Partner Deployment Program, which helps carriers establish autonomous freight operations and integrate the Kodiak Driver into their fleets, includes 10 Roads Express, CEVA Logistics, C.R. England, Loadsmith, Maersk, and Werner Enterprises, along with Martin-Brower. Kodiak operates truck ports at a Ryder System facility in Houston and a Pilot Co. travel center in the Atlanta area.

Lee White observed that “The Martin-Brower, HB, Ikea, etc. customer engagements prove out that AV trucking will work in most duty cycles for trucks and align with all of the customer profiles. That’s encouraging and points to broad adoption!”

A Key Hire for Plus

Even though the year is still young, I predict TRATON’s announcement choosing Plus to be their supplier for L4 products will be one of the biggest stories of 2024. Plus ADS will power the TRATON brands of Scania, MAN, and Navistar (International). Cumulatively, these three truck-makers within the TRATON Group produce 250,000 units per year.

As Plus ramps up to step into this highly commercial role, they have hired Jon Morrison as the company’s first Chief Revenue Officer. Given that Mr. Morrison has credentials and experience in both passcar and commercial vehicle side, the company says they can be responsive to new customers across the vehicle space.

Forterra Inks OEM Deal For Autonomous Terminal Tractors

Now to depart the open highway and roll through a gate to enter a bustling wonderland of trailers and trucks moving every which way. A steady acceleration is occurring in the “yard tractor” space, i.e. the movement of truck trailers using autonomous truck tractors within busy logistics yards.

A new milestone in the quest for commercialization occurred last month in which Kalmar, part of Cargotec, and Forterra (formerly RRAI) announced they have signed a joint development agreement for autonomous terminal tractor solutions. Kalmar, one of the world’s major yard truck manufacturers, will be responsible for developing the automation-ready terminal tractor. Forterra will be responsible for the integration of their AutoDrive® platform for autonomous operations for the terminal tractor.

Josh Araujo, CEO, Forterra, said, “This agreement brings together our vast experience in developing world-class autonomous systems and Kalmar’s extensive experience in port and terminal automation with their market-leading terminal tractor product. We believe AutoDrive® is the best platform to create a compelling new offering for the container and trailer-handling market.”

Juuso Kanner, Vice President, Automation Business Line, Kalmar, said, “We believe that automated operations will eventually become the standard in the container-handling industry, and there is huge potential in automating terminal tractors in terms of safety and productivity. This development agreement is the next exciting step in our innovation journey after the successful Kalmar RoboTractor pilot done in Norway and utilizing the learnings we took from that.”

I see the “within the fence” market finally starting to gain traction, moving beyond a protracted period of testing and trials. This applies to all of the offerors, i.e. ISEE and Outrider as well as Forterra. Working with Kalmar takes Forterra beyond the “autonomy retrofit” stage to factory-built AV-ready tractors that they can enable with their software. Forterra is now running their retrofitted tech at a trailer storage facility in Detroit. They have the option of deploying additional retrofitted systems to customers in the interim period until the OEM-sourced L4-ready tractors are rolling off the assembly line.

Wrap-up

As autonomous trucking moves from being a fascinating curiosity to a money-making asset, it’s all about OEM deals, whether highway trucks, box trucks, or terminal tractors. Aurora, Gatik, and Torc are at an advanced stage with their OEM partners. Plus and Forterra have announced their deals, which have momentum based on substantial joint technical activities leading up to this point.

Lee White provided his comments about the maturing of the AV trucking industry, saying “We now have had Daimler trucks and Isuzu say they are producing AV trucks off the production lines. We now have Volvo publicly signaling that a redundant chassis will be produced in their new facility in North Carolina. Navistar did not directly say it, but Traton has publicly said Class 8 Level four will be produced. That leaves Paccar to make the last announcement about redundant chassis on the production line. And then we have the Plus announcement, which means 70% of the U.S. Domestic market is publicly stating redundant chassis in preparation for autonomy. All great signs of progress for the industry.”

The long and continuing dance between truck-makers and their freight-carrying customers is evolving. OEMs selling to over-the-road trucking companies have a long history of offering choice to their customers, whether it be brakes, engines, tires, you name it. This part of the dance wont change – I expect future customers will be able to choose between several Automated Driving System offerings on a given brand of truck.

As the action shifts from the tech geeks to the freight operators, the insights from professionals with deep roots in trucking become more significant.

Disclosure: Richard Bishop is an Advisor to and/or equity holder in the following companies: Aurora, Forterra, Outrider, Plus.

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