Third-party logistics firm CEVA Logistics partnered with self-driving trucking company Kodiak Robotics on what the companies said was the first autonomous freight delivery in Oklahoma. With routes originating in Dallas-Fort Worth, running to Oklahoma City and Austin, Texas, CEVA is partnering with the AV company to integrate Kodiak’s technology into its North American fleet.
With about 2,500 drivers on the continent, the 3PL carrier is looking to integrate more automation and robotics into its contract logistics and freight management operations, which company leaders said could alleviate the strain on its workforce.
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“CEVA is committed to working alongside leading automation and robotics suppliers—Kodiak with its proven autonomy technologies—to unlock value for our customers’ supply chain operations,” said Shawn Stewart, North America president and managing director for CEVA. “At CEVA, we define innovation as the implementation of new ideas with business impact, and our partnership with Kodiak will deliver more business value to our customers, especially in light of the current supply chain crisis and the ongoing driver shortage.”
CEVA delivered its first load with Kodiak in November 2021 and is moving goods weekly on the 200-mile freight lane between Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin. The companies expanded the partnership in February with a new route between Dallas-Fort Worth and Oklahoma City on the Interstate 35 freight corridor. This route runs 200 miles between a CEVA facility in Dallas and the delivery point in Oklahoma City. On both routes, a Kodiak autonomous tractor, with a safety driver on board, pulls a CEVA trailer filled with consumer products.
In addition to these two lanes for CEVA, Kodiak Robotics has been delivering freight daily between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston since mid-2019. Since mid-2021, Kodiak Robotics also has delivered freight weekly between Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio.
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“CEVA is at the forefront of global logistics innovation and has recognized early on that the trucking industry will see the first widespread adoption of self-driving technology,” said Don Burnette, Kodiak founder and CEO. “Kodiak and CEVA are focused on serving Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and Oklahoma City because they cover some of the richest freight corridors in the U.S. As Americans grapple with pandemic-related supply-chain issues and the long-term truck driver shortage, CEVA is leading the industry in adopting new technology that will benefit its customers.”
The Kodiak Driver, which was created for long-haul trucks, incorporates Luminar's Iris LiDAR, ZF Full-Range Radar, Hesai 360-degree scanning LiDARs, as well as a range of cameras to capture and process hundreds of megabytes of perception data each second. These sensors give the truck long-range vision all around the vehicle in a wide variety of weather conditions.
