FRESNO, Calif. - DTL Transport, a family-run California trucking company that hauls produce for grocery chains, has agreed to run 75 driverless trucks with Kodiak AI's self-driving system in its own fleet, the two companies said on Wednesday. Kodiak called it the first publicly announced definitive agreement by an interstate carrier to operate driverless trucks that it owns itself.
DTL will own and operate the trucks and pay Kodiak a fee for every mile driven by the Kodiak Driver, an arrangement the company calls Driver as a Service. Neither company disclosed the per-mile rate, the length of the contract or its value. TechCrunch reported that the trucks are to be delivered starting in 2028.
The trucks will start on two Sun Belt routes where Kodiak has already tested: Interstate 10 between Dallas and El Paso, Texas, and Interstate 20 between Dallas and Atlanta. Kodiak said the routes would let DTL operate beyond the limits on hours that apply to human drivers, and that more lanes would be added over time.
The deal grew out of a pilot in September, when the Kodiak Driver hauled perishable goods for DTL about 225 miles along Interstate 5 and California State Route 99 between Fresno and Los Angeles. Kodiak said those were the first commercial goods ever carried autonomously by a Class 8 truck in California, under a heavy-duty testing permit the state's Department of Motor Vehicles granted it this summer. A safety operator was behind the wheel on those runs, TechCrunch reported.
"This represents a major new chapter in the central role Physical AI now plays in strengthening the U.S. supply chain," Don Burnette, Kodiak's founder and chief executive, said in the announcement.
"By integrating this technology into our fleet, complementing our experienced, professional workforce, we can expand capacity, enhance safety and drive innovation forward," said Lucky Dosanjh, DTL's president and chief executive. DTL, based in Fresno, says it runs more than 100 trucks.
Kodiak's driverless trucks have so far run with no one aboard only off public roads. Atlas Energy Solutions owns and operates 35 of them in the Permian Basin of West Texas, a fleet Kodiak has said it will grow to 100 by mid-2027. On highways the company still keeps safety operators in the cab, including on its runs for Charger Logistics between Dallas and Laredo. It plans to remove them by the end of this year on Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston, carrying goods for IKEA.
The agreement follows a similar move by its rival Aurora Innovation, which said last week that Charger Logistics plans to buy up to 500 trucks running Aurora's system, under a memorandum that is not binding.