Autonomous trucks would handle what's often the most onorous aspect of the job—long, boring routes along superhighways—what's called the middle-mile. Once exiting, loads are delivered on local roads by trucks with human drivers.
The 800 self-driving trucks Kodiak is providing Loadsmith is actually a misleading number, points out Suma, since through their efficiencies and ability to stay on the road longer they actually have the equivalent capacity of 2,000 human-driven trucks. Aside from Kodiak's self-driving technology, Suma cites the appointment in January of well-respected former USA Truck CEO James Reed as Kodiak's chief operating officer as a key reason for choosing Kodiak to equip LFN, explaining, “Bringing in a guy like James, you know, to me just really kind of lends to they're serious about about getting to commercialization, sooner rather than later.