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Kodiak lands first commercial deal to supply driverless trucks for public highways

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Kodiak lands first commercial deal to supply driverless trucks for public highways

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.

“One of the things that we love about mid-market carriers (like DTL) is that they are able to move with fast execution speed, much more at the speed of a startup or a small company or a tech company like Kodiak, and that they just want to get stuff done,” Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview. “It’s easier for them to integrate into their fleet because they’re not as large, and we think that this is a real turning point for the self-driving industry in general.”

The contract should give Kodiak a revenue boost and a positive benchmark. Its shares have fallen 87% from their opening-day price.


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