Kodiak AI will deliver 75 self-driving trucks to freight company DTL Transport starting in 2028. It’s the company’s first binding commercial deal for driverless big rigs that will run on public highways. The contract, announced Wednesday, comes just ahead of Kodiak’s next big milestone: pulling human safety operators out of the cab to begin operating a driverless highway service in December.
The company, which went public in September 2025, plans to launch that service by carrying goods for Ikea on Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston. DTL Transport, a California mid-market trucking company that hauls fresh produce and goods to grocery chains, plans to use the self-driving trucks on multiple interstate highway routes, starting with Dallas to El Paso, Texas, and Interstate 20 between Dallas and Atlanta. Kodiak has already conducted testing and operations on those two routes.
Its shares have fallen 87% from their opening-day price. It also puts Kodiak on a path to become an “asset-light” technology supplier, meaning it would sell its technology rather than own and run trucks itself — a goal it shares with competitor Aurora Innovation. Today, Kodiak has a number of customers under a Trucking-as-a-Service (TaaS) model, including Charger USA, Roehl Transport, and Werner Enterprises.
Under this business model, Kodiak owns and operates the self-driving trucks as a third-party carrier on behalf of other companies. It currently carries freight for these companies on a few routes in Texas. Kodiak generates revenue carrying freight daily for these companies on three active routes, but Burnette described these operations as still being in pilot stage.
Ultimately, Kodiak wants to move to a Driver-as-a-Service (DaaS) model, in which customers own and operate the trucks. Kodiak licenses its technology, charging customers by the mile for the duration of the contract. DTL is Kodiak’s first on-highway DaaS customer, a relationship that was forged during a pilot program last month in California.
In that pilot, Kodiak autonomously hauled perishable goods for DTL about 225 miles along Interstate 5 and California State Route 99 between Fresno, California, and Los Angeles, with a human safety operator behind the wheel. We don’t want to be in the business of running a trucking company.” Atlas Energy Solutions has been a Driver-as-a-Service customer since 2024. Technically, Atlas was Kodiak’s first customer under a binding commercial contract, but its driverless trucks operate in off-road settings in West Texas’ remote Permian Basin.
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