Bot Auto expects the hardware for its driverless trucking system, including sensors and computing equipment, to cost $50,000 per truck. The Houston-based company has selected Lenovo’s AD1 computer, built on two Nvidia Drive AGX Thor processors, for production in its Class 8 trucks, with rollout planned from the first quarter of 2027.
Bot Auto claims its hardware cost is three to eight times lower than competing systems, but the comparison is based on the company’s own estimates. It runs its own trucks and sells freight capacity rather than selling vehicles or licensing its technology to other carriers.
The company moves about 350 loads a month in Texas. In April, it completed a 231-mile driverless trip on Interstate 45 from northeast Houston to Hutchins, south of Dallas. Bot Auto then put its operating cost at $1.89 per mile without a driver, compared with $3.78 with one, FreightWaves reported. The company had 12 tractors as of April. It says revenue grew 270% from May to August.
Aurora, another autonomous trucking operator on the Dallas-Houston corridor, charges shippers about $2 per mile, including fuel surcharge, for driverless freight service. That is a customer price, not a measure of Aurora’s operating costs or hardware expense.
Autonomous trucking economics remain a hurdle for wider adoption. “We believe that the economics are not favorable to autonomous right now,” Werner Enterprises CFO Christopher Wikoff said at a Morgan Stanley conference in September.
Wikoff also cited unresolved questions over liability when crashes involve autonomous driving software, carriers or both.
