Maersk and Kodiak Establish Autonomous Trucking Lane from Houston to OKC

Glenn Taylor
·4 min read

Autonomous trucking may be a controversial topic among California lawmakers, but a new route could signal where driverless freight transportation may see growth.

A.P. Moller-Maersk and Kodiak Robotics have launched the first commercial autonomous trucking lane between Houston and Oklahoma City, expanding a partnership that began in November 2022, when they completed their first autonomous freight deliveries.

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Kodiak and Maersk are completing four weekly roundtrips between the Texas facility, where consumer products are loaded onto 53-foot trailers, and the OKC distribution center. Since August, the trucking company has been delivering eight weekly loads for Maersk customers, with a safety driver behind the wheel.

“Autonomous trucks will play an instrumental role in digitizing the supply chain,” said Erez Agmoni, global head of innovation, logistics and services, Maersk, in a statement. “We expect self-driving trucks to ultimately become a competitive advantage for Maersk as we execute on our strategy to provide customers with a sustainable, end-to-end logistics solution across air, land and sea.”

Operational learnings gained from the round trips are captured and documented as part of the Kodiak Partner Deployment Program, which helps companies learn what Kodiak’s self-driving trucks can do, as well as how to incorporate them in logistics strategies.

Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak Robotics, called the Maersk partnership a “perfect fit”.

Dr. Chris Caplice, executive director at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, told Sourcing Journal that the middle mile, where technology players like Kodiak and Aurora Innovation operate, would naturally be the first area in the supply chain to fully embrace autonomous trucking.

“My sense is automation of some sorts is inevitable…But automation will continue in any area of logistics that is driven by efficiency and margins are razor thin. You’re going to look for every competitive advantage you can,” said Caplice. “I think trucking can become a better job. To be honest, the idea of Smokey and the Bandit being on the road for three weeks, that’ll eventually go away.”

The autonomous trucking industry hit a few snags earlier this year amid ongoing regulatory scrutiny and substantial cash losses, as names like TuSimple, Embark and Locomation all either exited the U.S. market or wound down operations. Google even scrapped autonomous trucking efforts at Waymo Via earlier this year, instead shifting the division’s focus to driverless passenger cars and ride-hailing services.

Kodiak has been one of the success stories within the field, forging driverless partnerships with Ikea, as well as logistics giants like Ceva Logistics, Werner and Forward.

Timed with the Maersk news, Kodiak laid out its Partner Deployment Program on Thursday, with vice president of commercialization Michael Wiesinger acknowledging the difficulty autonomous trucking firms have in getting trials off the ground. He said the program started because “we can’t flip a switch and move towards autonomy.”

Wiesinger noted that since preferred partners often have their own unique networks, service and maintenance processes, operations and transportation management systems, Kodiak works with each partner to prioritize the geographies and deployment setups that address their specific challenges first.

“Resources are precious, and we want to ensure there are significant advantages for a company before they commit to early autonomy adoption. Once we determine there is a substantial business case, we sign an agreement to bring them under the Partner Deployment Program umbrella,” Wiesinger wrote. “After joining, we begin a complete 360-degree discovery process, analyzing their network, understanding their systems and operations, and pinpointing what lanes they run today that will be the best autonomous test cases for them and for us.”

Kodiak’s trucks use eight cameras and four radar and Lidar units that scan the surroundings up to a half-mile away every tenth of a second in all directions. These are mounted in boxes where the rearview mirrors typically sit and feed data to the onboard computer, which sends instructions to the driving systems.

Although Texas and Oklahoma have less regulatory bureaucary, companies like Kodiak still have to navigate safety hurdles and other concerns. Both Maersk and Kodiak cited research from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, estimating that human error causes 94 percent of autonomous vehicle crashes. But the same agency also documented 382 crashes involving autonomous vehicles between July 2021 and Aug. 15, 2023.

According to the American Trucking Associations (ATA), the trucking industry faces a shortage of roughly 78,000 drivers. The ATA estimates that, based on current driver demographic trends, as well as projected growth in freight demand, the shortage could swell to more than 160,000 over the next decade.

Maersk and Kodiak said they will continue to explore future avenues to collaborate in North America.

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