Ikea United States and Kodiak Robotics announced a cooperation agreement to pilot autonomous freight delivery in Texas.
The agreement will see a Kodiak autonomous heavy-duty truck transport Ikea products daily between the Ikea Distribution Center in Baytown and an Ikea store in Frisco.
The trip between the distribution center and the store is roughly 300 miles each way.
The truck will be equipped with Kodiak’s autonomous driving system with a human safety driver on board at all times.
The Founder and CEO of Kodiak Robotics, Don Burnette, said this about the agreement:
IKEA and Kodiak share a commitment to putting safety first. Together we can enhance safety, improve working conditions for drivers, and create a more sustainable freight transportation system. Adopting autonomous trucking technology can improve drivers’ quality of life by focusing on the local driving jobs most prefer to do. We look forward to working with the IKEA carrier partners to bring these benefits to the IKEA supply chain.
This is not the first time that Kodiak has tested its autonomous driving system.
The company has been running freight autonomously in Texas since 2019 and recently opened up a new route between Dallas and Oklahoma.
In addition, the company has also conducted pilots with two national logistic companies, Werner Enterprises and US Xpress.
