Kodiak
Think autonomous trucks can’t handle brutal oilfield terrain? Kodiak, Atlas Energy, and the Western Star 49X have 1,000+ triple-trailer loads to prove you wrong.
In the Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, the first mile—or any mile—is rarely paved. It’s bumpy and dusty, crosses cattle guards, threads ranch gates, and ends at an oil well site where a crew is waiting for on time-critical freight that keeps the American energy economy moving.
This year, a Western Star 49X began running those miles with nobody in the cab, powered by the Kodiak Driver.
The Permian is well-known to Kodiak, a leading developer of driverless technology. Kodiak has been operating driverless trucks in the Permian since 2024. These operations occur in partnership with oilfield services leader Atlas Energy Solutions, the first company to own and operate driverless trucks in commercial service.
This fall, the truck was new. Atlas selected the Western Star 49X, a vocational workhorse shaped by the oil fields of West Texas, as the newest platform for its driverless fleet. Kodiak’s engineering team integrated the Kodiak Driver onto the 49X in just months.
In this operation, the demands on the driver are anything but simple. Atlas hauls sand in triple-trailer configurations: more than half a football field from bumper to rear trailer, up to 275,000 pounds loaded, carrying 50 percent more sand per trip than doubles.
So when Atlas first asked Kodiak if they could run driverless triples, Kodiak’s honest answer was “not yet.” Then they got to work. The Kodiak Driver now accounts for such critical details as the 1-1/2 seconds it takes brake pressure to reach the last trailer. It tracks five articulating units through every turn. And it guides all of them through six-meter ranch gates.
Between February and August alone, the Kodiak Driver hauled more than 1,400 loads in the triples configuration. It now does that work on the 49X, as part of the world’s largest customer-owned driverless fleet, which Atlas plans to grow to 100 trucks by mid-2027.
For Kodiak, that first driverless mile of the Western Star 49X is more proof that driverless trucking is already doing real work in the oil patch, around the clock. That was their first mile working with Daimler Truck, and they’re now looking forward to many more.
