Kodiak AI and DTL Transport have started hauling perishable freight on autonomous trucks from Fresno to a Los Angeles distribution center. The run covers about 225 miles, mostly on State Route 99 and Interstate 5. The first deliveries went out last week, marking the first commercial loads under the heavy-duty autonomous vehicle testing permit Kodiak received from the California DMV in August.
DTL is a Fresno carrier that hauls produce for large grocers. The two companies will measure transit times, shipping costs and produce shelf life during the pilot, per Heavy Duty Trucking. The permit does not allow driverless runs.
California banned autonomous vehicles of 10,001 pounds or more from public roads until the DMV adopted new rules in April. A heavy-duty developer moves from supervised testing to driverless testing to commercial deployment. It must log 500,000 miles of testing at each phase and prepare a structured safety case for the truck’s hardware, software and operations. Autonomous trucks must still stop at CHP weigh stations.
Aurora, Kodiak, Gatik and Plus hold heavy-duty testing permits in the state, according to Heavy Duty Trucking. The Teamsters have sued the DMV over the rules, arguing it “vastly underestimated the costs of deploying self-driving trucks.”
Aurora already runs driverless trucks in Texas on the Dallas-Houston lane and expects to end the year with 200 of them. It told investors last week it plans more than 30,000 driverless trucks by 2030, per FreightWaves. Volvo Autonomous Solutions hauls freight on the same lane with a safety driver, and targets driverless runs in the first quarter of 2027.
Kodiak plans to launch driverless operations on public highways in Texas by the end of 2026.
