Topic
Driverless Class 8 truck operations, fleet scaling and service models such as Driver as a Service.
FMCSA granted Aurora and Kodiak a five-year exemption that lets driverless trucks use cab-mounted beacons in place of warning triangles. Federal rules give a human driver 10 minutes after a breakdown to place triangles. An empty cab cannot do that.
Reality
Aurora and other driverless truck operators won a five-year U.S. exemption to use cab-mounted beacons in place of driver-placed warning devices. The term is long enough to plan driverless freight around, though the beacons' safety on the road is still unproven.
Reality
Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Waabi are hauling Warp customer freight on the Dallas-Houston corridor with an observer in the driver's seat. The measure now is whether the truck keeps to the pickup and delivery schedules of a shared-load network.
Reality
Thieves broke into two PlusAI trailers taken from Fremont, one Nvidia-branded, and found 40,000 pounds of test sand. Overhaul's tally of more than $150 million in AI cargo losses is small next to AI spending, but single thefts run into the millions, and that cost lands on whoever ships each load of chips.
Reality
Mercedes-Benz will build Wayve's Level 2 driving software into at least one model due within two years, with the human still driving. The deal gives the startup more reach through carmakers, but its driverless product still has to prove itself in separate robotaxi work.
Reality
Tesla opened its first dedicated Semi factory in Sparks, Nevada, built to make 50,000 trucks a year. It has set no date for reaching that rate, so fleets and investors are working from a capacity target until the trucks ship.
Reality
The Swedish carrier will phase the trucks in over 24 months from September and rent them out through its Saga software, with a third party carrying the purchase financing.
Reality
Qatar's sovereign fund co-led Gatik's $200 million Series D after backing a satellite firm and a chip metrology maker in June. The revenue line that did not move is the one to read.
Perspective Coverage
5 publishersReality
Aurora runs 20 driverless trucks today and wants 200 by December, but covering last year's $800 million loss with revenue alone would take closer to 2,000 of them at full utilisation.
Reality
Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority has cleared an Einride truck with no cab and no safety operator to haul groceries between two Lidl sites on a public road. Einride shares traded at $3.79, about 11% of their 52-week high.
Reality
The pre-money equity value is $800m against the $3.3bn a 2021 blank-check deal agreed to, and the revenue behind it comes from licensing PlusAI's internal toolchain rather than from selling self-driving trucks.
Reality
The Series D is the headline. The operating record behind it, 85,000 driverless orders at 99% on time on repeating dock-to-store lanes, is the part that priced the round.
Reality
Aurora and Kodiak can now test autonomous trucks in their home state, but the April 28 rule change behind the permits is being challenged by Teamsters California in Alameda Superior Court.
Reality
Aurora and Kodiak can now run supervised autonomous trucks on California roads. Two consecutive 500,000-mile gates mean the safety operator stays in the cab for a long time.
Reality
Mythos AI's towboat advisor and Aurora's driverless trucks are not rival technologies so much as rival evidentiary standards. Only one of them has a published number, and it is not a savings figure.
Reality