Kodiak AI has signed a binding commercial agreement to supply 75 self-driving trucks to DTL Transport beginning in 2028, the company's first such deal for driverless big rigs operating on public highways. The contract, announced Wednesday, covers trucks that will run on multiple interstate routes. DTL Transport is a California mid-market trucking company that hauls fresh produce and goods to grocery chains.
The DTL routes will start with Dallas to El Paso, Texas, and Interstate 20 between Dallas and Atlanta. Kodiak has already conducted testing and operations on those two corridors. The agreement follows a pilot program last month in California in which Kodiak autonomously hauled perishable goods for DTL about 225 miles along Interstate 5 and California State Route 99 between Fresno and Los Angeles, with a human safety operator behind the wheel.
The deal lands shortly before Kodiak's next milestone: removing human safety operators from the cab to begin a driverless highway service in December. The company, which went public in September 2025, plans to launch that service by carrying goods for Ikea on Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston. Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette said mid-market carriers like DTL can move with execution speed closer to that of a startup, and that they are easier to integrate into because they are not as large. He called the agreement a turning point for the self-driving industry.
The contract is expected to give Kodiak a revenue boost and a positive benchmark. Its shares have fallen 87% from their opening-day price. The deal also advances Kodiak's path toward becoming an asset-light technology supplier that sells its technology rather than owning and operating trucks, a goal it shares with competitor Aurora Innovation.
Kodiak currently serves customers including Charger USA, Roehl Transport and Werner Enterprises under a Trucking-as-a-Service model, in which Kodiak owns and operates the self-driving trucks as a third-party carrier. It generates revenue carrying freight daily for those companies on three active routes in Texas, which Burnette described as still being in pilot stage. Under the Driver-as-a-Service model Kodiak ultimately wants, customers own and operate the trucks and Kodiak licenses its technology, charging by the mile for the duration of the contract. DTL is Kodiak's first on-highway DaaS customer.
Atlas Energy Solutions has been a DaaS customer since 2024 and was technically Kodiak's first customer under a binding commercial contract, though its driverless trucks operate off-road in West Texas' remote Permian Basin. Atlas currently owns and operates 35 driverless trucks equipped with Kodiak's self-driving system, and Burnette said Kodiak is on track to have as many as 100 in service there by mid-2027. Kodiak did not disclose the value of the DTL deal. Its public 2025 investor presentation forecast annual recurring revenue of $150,000 to $190,000 per truck, assuming a per-mile licensing fee of about $0.97 and annual mileage of about 225,000 miles per truck, among other factors. On those projections, the DTL deal could generate at least about $11.2 million in annual recurring revenue once all 75 trucks are delivered.
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