For Kodiak Robotics, 2024 is shaping up to be “the year of driverless.”
That’s according to CEO and founder Don Burnette, who spoke with Tech Brew ahead of the autonomous trucking startup’s reveal of its sixth-generation truck at CES this week. This latest version marks a major milestone for the Mountain View, California-based company: the introduction of a semi truck that will hit the open road with no driver in the cabin.
“We are finally ready for driverless,” Burnette said. “We now have the platform, which is the truck, that has all the redundancy that we need in order to safely and responsibly deploy these vehicles and these systems on public roads, and have the confidence that they’re going to be able to respond and handle conditions safely.”
Redundant steering, braking, and power features—meaning, layers of backup ready to kick into gear in the event of a failure—are key to Kodiak’s ability to go fully driverless, Burnette said. The planned deployment of driverless Kodiak trucks this year is a “Holy Grail” moment for the startup Burnette founded in 2018 after working on several other self-driving projects, he said.
The driverless system initially will be used within Kodiak’s own fleet, running routes between Dallas and Houston. Next year, the company aims to start selling the technology to customers who can integrate the system into their fleets.
Plans by Kodiak and its competitors to take safety operators out of their trucks this year have been met with criticism from labor unions, including the Teamsters, as well as transportation safety advocates.
In discussing the safety of Kodiak’s trucks, Burnette pointed to the backup systems for key features like braking and steering: “Where the rubber meets the road, literally and figuratively, there’s backups…That’s the kind of thing that’s different about the vehicle that we’re launching today that we didn’t have yesterday.”
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In founding Kodiak, Burnette bet on long-haul trucking in part because he believes there’s an unmet labor need in the sector, and because taking drivers out of trucks that largely stick to regular routes in mostly predictable conditions is viewed as an easier proposition than deploying robotaxis in dense urban areas.
“You get in the right-hand lane on an interstate highway in the middle of nowhere. You drive the speed limit. You just go back and forth, all day, every day,” Burnette said.
But what about blocked lanes, emergency vehicles, and cars pulled over on the shoulder—scenarios that have proven challenging for some AV systems to detect? Burnette says Kodiak “can handle all of that.”
What the startup will soon start trying to sell to trucking and logistics companies is the Kodiak Driver, a system made up of sensors, a safety computer that interacts with the redundant safety features, and a mapping function. Kodiak’s “SensorPods” contain a combination of short- and long-range cameras, lidar, and radar.
Upgrades in the sixth-gen truck include the addition of two improved high-res, automotive-grade lidar sensors and two new side radar sensors aimed at boosting long-range object detection, according to a news release. It also has new, extra-bright hazard lights, and microphones that can help detect emergency vehicles and other potential hazards.
Kodiak’s current customers include logistics companies like Maersk and Forward Air and retailers like Ikea, as well as the Department of Defense.