The shakeout in autonomous trucking struck in full force in 2023, leaving three leaders targeting business routes without humans within the cab and a few late entries on the periphery.
Embark Trucks became the primary to fall in March, shedding 70% of its San Francisco-based employees and prompting an emotional goodbye from co-founder Alex Rodrigues.
Rodrigues and mid-20s co-founder and college buddy Brandon Moak stood to garner tons of of hundreds of thousands when Embark went public via special purpose acquisition merger with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. in November 2021.
“I’m sorry that myself and Brandon weren’t in a position to discover a way,” Rodrigues wrote in an email to employees. “You’re an incredible team and it has been the highlight of my life to get to work with all of you.”
Embark spent a lot of the $314 million received in its SPAC. Investors redeemed $300 million in shares on the last minute, depriving Embark of additional working capital. Embark had no manufacturing partner, marketing its robotic driver system as an OEM-agnostic add-on.
Enterprise capitalists and investors who loved the promise of autonomous technology when borrowing was low-cost refocused on profits when the associated fee of cash rapidly rose. Embark’s financial prospects dimmed after a 1-for-20 reverse stock split in August 2022. The corporate’s share price had drifted below $1, exposing it to delisting from the Nasdaq.
With nobody coming forward to lend Embark money, the corporate considered liquidation before selling itself in May to Applied Intuition, an autonomous simulation business, for $71 million in money.
![](https://www.freightwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/20/122022-Embark-Knight-autonomous-1200x675.jpg)
Waymo chooses robotaxis over trucking
As Alphabet Inc., the parent of Google, looked for tactics to chop costs, its “other bets” found themselves vulnerable. Waymo Via, the business trucking arm of the ride-hailing company Waymo, found itself repeatedly within the crosshairs. Layoffs starting in March ended with the sensible shutdown of the trucking startup in July while work continued on robotaxi programs in several cities.
But Waymo needed to tread flippantly due to a relationship with market-leading Daimler Truck. Waymo continues to work on a redundant chassis for the Freightliner Cascadia involving mechanical backups for key systems like steering, braking and low-voltage power.
Waymo left open the potential for returning to the trucking space, but all projects save for Daimler were shelved.
How much Waymo is working with Daimler is unclear. Daimler’s independent subsidiary, Torc Robotics, received a test version of the redundant chassis in November. It plans for driverless business trucking in 2027.
TuSimple looks east
Perhaps essentially the most unexpected departure within the autonomous shakeout was that of TuSimple, acknowledged as a pacesetter from the time of its 80-mile driver-out pilot in December 2021. That might need been the last good thing to occur on the San Diego-based startup with separate operations in China.
The layoff of 25% of its U.S. workforce a yr ago preceded a second round of cuts in May, just weeks after TuSimple celebrated 10 million miles of supervised autonomous driving within the U.S. That was followed by the beginning of a “strategic review” in late June, when TuSimple said it would leave the U.S. market to deal with China and Japan.
In early December, TuSimple pulled the plug, keeping simply enough U.S. employees to wind down operations in the primary quarter of 2024. Funds at TuSimple remain strong: The corporate had $776.8 million in money, money equivalents and short-term investments at the tip of the third quarter.
The impetus to deal with China can have come from co-founder Mo Chen, who has businesses there. He also controls 59% of TuSimple’s voting stock. The pivot away from U.S. operations follows the December 2022 breakup with Navistar International after a 2 ½-year manufacturing partnership and reverses plans to sell or spin off TuSimple China operations. In actual fact, the corporate has accelerated autonomous testing in China and Japan.
Clearout makes Aurora Innovation an outlined leader
The clearout of Embark, Waymo Via and TuSimple left Aurora Innovation, invigorated by greater than $800 million in latest capital, and privately held Kodiak Robotics vying for the mantle of leadership. Each plan to commercialize driverless routes in Texas by the tip of next yr.
“At a time when markets remain uncertain, raising such a great amount from a few of Wall Street’s most sophisticated investors demonstrates the market’s belief in Aurora’s progress and our ability to commercialize autonomous vehicles at scale,” an organization spokesperson said in an email to FreightWaves in July.
Aurora has established transfer hubs in Houston and south of Dallas, where it runs scores of hub-to-hub driver-monitored autonomous loads weekly. Aurora, led by O.G. Chris Urmson as CEO, has methodically checked off its list of imperatives to securely remove the human driver.
Aurora said in April that its system is “feature complete” and all that continues to be is validation and improving performance.
The Pittsburgh-based company partners with OEMs Paccar Inc. and Volvo Group in redundant chassis development. They’ve backup capabilities to steer and stop within the event of a critical component failure. The trucks also pull to the side of the road, often called fallback, once they encounter an issue.
Kodiak Robotics exhibits leadership, too
Kodiak made headlines all year long, first by hiring former USA Truck CEO James Reed as its chief operating officer and de facto mentor to CEO Don Burnette, a former graduate assistant to Urmson at Carnegie Mellon University.
Burnette worked for Urmson within the Google Self-Driving Automobile Project that became Waymo before launching Kodiak in 2018 with Paz Eshel, who took a position early this yr with General Motors to assist construct out its hydrogen energy business.
Kodiak’s funds are opaque since the Mountain View, California-based startup is private. However it ended the yr showing a prototype of its Kodiak Driver autonomous system on a Ford F-150 pickup truck prototype for the military. Kodiak received a grant for as much as $50 million from the U.S. Department of Defense a yr ago to use its technology to the armed forces.
![](https://www.freightwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/20/122023-Kodiak-defense-F-150-1200x800.jpg)
“Finding applications of technology that may apply to a military use case concurrently with a civilian and business use case is the long run, because that’s where the efficiency is,” Burnette told FreightWaves in early December.
As for raising more cash, Burnette is optimistic if circumspect.
“The conversations are definitely turning more positive,” he said. “The entire community is beginning to ease up. And it is a momentum-driven business. When investors think other investors are poised to leap, that form of creates a little bit little bit of a springboard effect.”
Torc Robotics’ deliberate approach also looks like a winner
Being an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck means Torc Robotics doesn’t need to worry much about resources. Sure, CEO Peter Vaughan Schmidt have to be as accountable as he was when he ran global autonomous operations for the German truck maker. He oversaw the March 2019 deal that brought Torc into the Daimler fold.
Since taking on as CEO in October 2022, Schmidt has driven the discipline that separates a small growth company from one whose scaling plans resemble those of its parent company. Test routes with safety drivers and engineers cover 1,000 miles from Phoenix to Oklahoma City. C.R. England and Schneider are early participants.
Torc sees commercialized autonomy from the Mexico border to as far north as St. Louis as its initial driverless route in 2027. However it is letting Daimler’s loyal customer base make that decision. Torc’s unparalleled advantage is access to Daimler’s customer base.
What concerning the other guys?
If the leadership picture for Level 4 high-autonomy trucking is becoming clearer, it just isn’t yet complete.
Two AI-focused startups — Waabi Innovation and Stack AV — are only getting began.
Waabi partnered with Uber Freight in a 10-year deal to check its Waabi Driver system. To be fair, Uber Freight partners with multiple autonomous trucking startups because it seeks to share a wealthy database of route density while adding supervised autonomous capability to what CEO Lior Ron said is 100 corporations in queue to try moving freight autonomously.
Stack is run by former Argo AI autonomous passenger automobile founders, including Brian Salesky. Its specific plans remain opaque, however the 70 years of combined robotic vehicle experience amongst its founders suggests Stack might be a force to be reckoned with.
Backed by Japan’s Softbank with $1 billion — based on a neighborhood business development official in Pittsburgh where Stack is headquartered — resources usually are not in query. Salesky declined to substantiate that figure to FreightWaves.
On the center mile and within the distribution yard
There’s more to the autonomous trucking landscape than on-highway freight movement.
Gatik, one other Mountain View startup, continued to dominate the short-haul middle mile for autonomy, adding regular operations for grocery giant Kroger within the Dallas area and signing Northwest Arkansas-based Tyson Foods to a three-year contract in September that may lead to expansion to as many as 40 of Tyson’s distribution markets.
Unlike Class 8 autonomy, Gatik has practically no competition in driverless distribution routes.
![](https://www.freightwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/20/122023-Gatik-Kroger.jpg)
Autonomy also works within the distribution yard. Startup Outrider not only raised $73 million in a Series C round in January, but it surely continued so as to add features to driverless yard tractors and an autonomous ecosystem focused on safety in moving and positioning trailers.
Outrider’s yard automation solution now understands, anticipates and interacts with fixed and moving actors within the yard. The updated perception system allows Outrider to attain critical safety and performance objectives for business driverless operations in 2024.
![](https://www.freightwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/20/122023-Outrider-perception-1200x675.jpg)
Related articles:
Aurora Innovation raises $820M in fresh capital
Gatik robot trucks will haul Tyson chicken, sausage and hot dogs
Kodiak Robotics makes autonomous pickup for the military
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