Testing and Operations of Autonomous Semi Trucks

As of August 2025, no truck maker or startup has deployed autonomous platooning of semi trucks where the following trucks operate without any human drivers at any location.

Platooning will have no drivers in the trucks following a lead truck. Drivers in a convoy will share the driving of the lead truck. This can increase miles driven and provide half the benefit of fully automated trucks. Currently, human driven trucks go about 100000 miles per year and make about $70,000 per truck per year in profit while platooning three trucks can give about 200,000 miles per year for $280,000 per truck per year in profit and fully automated trucks could have 300,000 miles per year for $500,000 per year per truck in profit.

Commercial deployment of platooning is allowed in 29 U.S. states: trucks can run from coast to coast or the Canadian to Mexican borders. Importantly, according to Peloton, over 50% of annual U.S. truck freight ton mileage occurs in these approved states.

Recent platooning projects

Autonomous truck developer Kodiak Robotics is one of the self-driving truck leaders and is already making deliveries. Kodiak completed 900 autonomous freight deliveries for Martin Brower in 2024 and, working with J.B. Hunt and Bridgestone, surpassed 100,000 miles on long-haul routes. In January, Atlas Energy Solutions became the first Kodiak customer to take ownership of a RoboTruck – a semi equipped with Kodiak’s self-driving system – and launch driverless commercial semitruck operations.

Kodiak is planning to launch autonomous trucking at scale in the second half of 2026. They have two large sensor pods of each side of the truck. They will use remote driving for to get them onto the road.

Kodiak SensorPods combine LiDAR, radar, and cameras to give the Kodiak Driver a detailed view of the driving environment. They’re designed to be swapped in the field—quicker than changing a tire, with no specialized training—keeping vehicles moving and maximizing uptime. Purpose-built for manufacturing, maintenance, and daily operational use, SensorPods are easy to integrate across different vehicle types and engineered to perform in unforgiving environments.

In 2024, Atlas started as the perfect partner for Kodiak. The Permian’s private lease road network is an almost ideal use case for autonomous technology, and an ideal sandbox to launch our driverless operations. Other than the occasional cow, traffic is limited and speeds average less than 20 miles per hour. Kodiak is able to navigate dirt roads, and they already have extensive dirt road driving experience from their work with the Department of Defense.

Platooning projects along I-70 in Ohio and Indiana involve pairs of trucks utilizing advanced automated platooning technology (from Kratos Defense, for example). However, these deployments require professional drivers in both the lead and following trucks for safety and regulatory reasons. The technology allows the lead driver to control both trucks, but each vehicle still has a human onboard who can intervene if necessary.

Aurora Innovation plans to launch its fully autonomous trucks on public roadways this year, first in Texas and later in New Mexico and Arizona.

By the end of 2025, the Aurora’s trucks will
– operate autonomously day and night
– within the speed limit, up to 75 miles per hour
– in suburban and urban areas, including in dense traffic
– in construction and work zones with cones and barriers
– and in rain and heavy wind.

The Aurora Driver, with proprietary FirstLight lidar that can see over 450 meters ahead, has the ability to spot and react to pedestrians up to 11 seconds sooner than human drivers at highway speeds at night.

Ahead of the commercial launch, Aurora created a Safety Case Framework, a self-driving vehicle development tool that Aurora said is the first self-driving framework ever to address the safety of both autonomous trucks and passenger cars.

Autonomous trucking player Bot Auto plans to deploy a pilot program in Texas that tests its first driver-out (i.e., fully autonomous) commercial freight operations. The company hasn’t announced a target date for the driverless launch but is planning continuous cargo hauling between Houston and San Antonio using autonomous trucks.

For the last two years, engineers from Waabi and Volvo Group have been collaborating on autonomous trucking technology. In February, the companies announced they are jointly developing driverless heavy-duty tractors. Commercial pilots in Texas are expected to begin in the coming months, with plans for series production of autonomous trucks in the next few years. Prior to announcing its partnership with Waabi, Volvo partnered with Aurora Innovation to bring the company’s automated driving technology – the Aurora Driver – to Volvo’s VNL model.

From 2017–2018, Volvo conducted U.S. on-highway demos with partners like FedEx and the North Carolina Turnpike Authority. These involved 2–3 trucks maintaining close gaps (e.g., 50 feet at 55 mph or 1.5-second time gaps at 62 mph) using Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC). Benefits included 6–7% fuel savings and faster braking responses, but drivers remained in all trucks to monitor and intervene if needed.

Advanced platooning concepts distinguish levels:
Level 1/2 (Driver-Assisted/Partial Automation): All trucks have drivers; technology automates spacing and braking, but humans handle steering, lane changes, and oversight. This matches Volvo’s historical demos.

Auto-Follower/Level 4 for Followers: Lead truck has a human driver; following trucks operate autonomously (potentially driverless) in a limited domain (e.g., highways). This could save labor by removing drivers from followers, with fuel gains of 4% for the lead and 10% for followers.

Volvo has tested elements of this in projects like Sweden4Platooning (2018–2020), focusing on inter-brand compatibility and reliability. However, even in these, followers had drivers for monitoring road conditions and non-automated tasks like lane changes

Volvo has not deployed truly driverless followers (no human aboard) commercially or operationally. Projections from 2019–2021 estimated market readiness for auto-follower platooning in the early 2020s, but challenges like safety validation, regulations, and integration delayed it. By 2025, industry focus (including Volvo’s) has shifted from platooning to standalone Level 4 autonomous trucks for hub-to-hub routes.

Initial hub-to-hub runs in Texas (e.g., for DHL) include safety drivers; full driver-out operations are planned but not yet deployed.

Torc Robotics, an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck, is working with artificial intelligence specialist Nvidia and manufacturing company Flex to bring autonomous trucks to American roadways. Together, they’ve created a scalable, high-performance production platform for the Freightliner Cascadia. Torc’s first driver-out trucks will arrive in the Sunbelt in 2027 and scale from there.

Startup firm Stack AV publicly announced in September 2023 that it is developing autonomous driving technology for Class 8 trucks. Led by the founders of the now-defunct Argo AI, the company has yet to release details about its launch plans.