J.B. Hunt, Bridgestone, and Kodiak surpass 50,000 autonomous, long-haul trucking miles

J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Bridgestone Americas, and Kodiak Robotics recently celebrated a successful ongoing weekly delivery collaboration that has surpassed 50,000 autonomous long-haul trucking miles, incorporating Kodiak autonomous trucks to ship Bridgestone passenger car tires between South Carolina and Dallas.

Since launching in January, the autonomous route has been driven without accidents and achieved 100% on-time pickup and delivery. The companies have expanded the collaboration to include additional weekly deliveries along the route.

Using Kodiak’s hub-to-hub autonomous delivery model, the long-haul stretch of the route from Atlanta to Dallas—approximately 750 miles and 16 hours—is completed using Kodiak autonomous driving technology, which is fitted with Bridgestone M719 drive tires and R213 steer tires. J.B. Hunt, No. 4 on the FleetOwner 500: For Hire, transports the trailers to and from Bridgestone facilities and Kodiak hubs. Through J.B. Hunt 360box, a network of more than 14,000 company trailers, the companies secure capacity for the return trip from Dallas, preventing empty miles and improving route efficiency.

“Working closely with Kodiak and Bridgestone, we were able to deliver a complementary solution that integrates autonomous technology with day-to-day operations while also solving backhaul challenges,” said Nick Hobbs, COO and president of contract services at J.B. Hunt. “It’s a great example of how our mode-neutral approach can leverage multiple service offerings to produce efficient, value-driven solutions unique to our customers’ needs.”

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Autonomy and efficiency: A round-trip solution

The collaboration provides a round-trip solution for delivering Bridgestone passenger car tires and minimizing empty miles for efficiency:

• J.B. Hunt moves the load from Bridgestone’s Aiken Passenger Tire plant in Graniteville, South Carolina, to Kodiak’s Atlanta-area autonomous truckport in Villa Rica, Georgia.
• Kodiak autonomous trucks complete the long-haul stretch of the route from Atlanta to Kodiak’s Lancaster, Texas, facility. A two-person team of Kodiak safety drivers oversee the operation of the autonomous truck.
• J.B. Hunt transports the load approximately 50 miles from Lancaster to Bridgestone’s Roanoke, Texas, distribution center.
• For the trip from Dallas to Atlanta, J.B. Hunt leverages its 360box network to identify additional customers with live and drop freight needs along that route. Kodiak completes the delivery autonomously to Atlanta, and then J.B. Hunt transports the load to its next destination.

“Our ability to build an autonomous delivery program with J.B. Hunt, one of America’s best-respected and most innovative trucking fleets, and Bridgestone, a longstanding Kodiak investor and a leader in transportation technology, makes this a perfect collaboration,” Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak, said. “Demonstrating the efficacy of our middle-mile model and improving operational efficiencies for our customers sets us all on a course for rapid and sustainable growth.”