Kodiak Robotics and Ceva Logistics have become the first companies to deliver freight autonomously in the state of Oklahoma.

The third-party logistics company teamed up with Kodiak to deliver freight autonomously between Dallas Fort-Worth and Austin, Texas; and Dallas-Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.

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, Texas. The companies expanded the partnership in February 2022 with a new route between Dallas-Fort Worth and Oklahoma City on the freight-rich Interstate 35 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 pulls a CEVA trailer filled with consumer products.

This partnership is a critical step towards the companies’ long-term goal of integrating Kodiak’s technology into Ceva’s North American truck fleet, Kodiak officials said in a press release.

“Ceva is committed to working alongside leading automation and robotics suppliers – like Kodiak with its proven autonomy technologies – to unlock value for our customers’ supply chain operations,” says Shawn Stewart, Ceva’s president and managing director in North America. “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.”

With more than 2,449 drivers in its North American fleet, Ceva officials say it’s committed to the benefits of autonomous technology to alleviate the strain on its existing workforce.

“Ceva … has recognized early on that the trucking industry will see the first widespread adoption of self-driving technology,” said Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak. “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.”

In addition to these two lanes in connection with Ceva, Kodiak Robotics has been delivering freight daily between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston since mid-2019. Since mid-2021, Kodiak has also been delivering freight weekly between Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio.

Kodiak is developing the Kodiak Driver, the company’s self-driving technology purpose-built for long-haul trucks. It 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 allow the truck to "see" long-range and all around the vehicle in a wide variety of weather conditions.