Two driverless ‘RoboTrucks’ delivered 100 loads for Permian Basin frac sand operation

Driverless truck tech company Kodiak Robotics, Inc. announced a major milestone for a partner company in the Permian Basin.

According to a January 24 announcement from Kodiak, Atlas Energy Solutions Inc. completed delivery of 100 loads of proppant (a material used in fracking) with two “RoboTrucks” equipped with Kodiak’s self-driving system in the Permian Basin, located in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.

“This milestone marks the first time ever that a customer has taken ownership of a RoboTruck and launched driverless commercial semi-trucking operations,” Kodiak stated. “This sets Kodiak apart as the first company in the autonomous trucking industry to launch commercial driverless trucking operations.”

“This is an incredible moment, for us and for the autonomous trucking industry as we have officially delivered a commercial RoboTruck to a customer and launched commercial operations,” said Don Burnette, Founder and CEO, Kodiak. “The commercialization of autonomous trucks has been a goal for the industry for many years, and it has now come to fruition. Kodiak is the first company to make autonomous trucking a real business, and this is a major step towards profitability for our company.”

“Incorporating these driverless RoboTrucks into our operations is a significant advancement in the automation of our business, enhancing our ability to maintain a fundamentally safe and reliable service at the best price for our customers,” said John Turner, CEO, Atlas. “Becoming the first company to operate our own autonomous semi-trucks and reaching 100 successful autonomous proppant deliveries demonstrates our unique commitment to driving innovation and automation across the Permian Basin’s rugged terrain, dust, and heat.”

Atlas intends to scale up use of RoboTrucks in its operations in 2025. Kodiak will open an office in Odessa, Texas, to support Atlas’s increased deployment of driverless trucks.

“Kodiak’s launch of driverless trucking service coincides with Atlas’s first deliveries of sand off of the Dune Express, a 42-mile long, fully-electric conveyor system that carries sand from Atlas’s Kermit, Texas sand facility to an end-of-line loadout facility in eastern New Mexico. Atlas’s Kodiak-driver equipped, autonomous RoboTrucks are expected to move sand from the Dune Express to Atlas’s customers across the Delaware Basin. The Dune Express is part of Atlas’s strategy to automate the entire logistics process for sand delivery to make it safer, more efficient, and more reliable. It also aims to eliminate millions of truck miles driven on public roads across the Permian, reducing traffic and improving safety,” Kodiak said.

In July 2024, the companies announced a successful 21 mile off-road delivery “of Atlas’s high-quality frac sand from an Atlas depot to a wellsite with no one inside the cab.”

Check out the video below for more on the partnership between Atlas and Kodiak.

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