Overview
Driverless Trucks on Texas Interstates
Texas is where driverless trucking became a business. Aurora began hauling paid freight with no one aboard between Dallas and Houston on May 1, 2025, and now runs 10 routes from Texas to Phoenix. Bot Auto, Gatik, Kodiak and Waabi with Volvo also run in the state, Torc Robotics is testing Daimler trucks on I-35, on long-haul interstates, middle-mile distribution routes and Permian Basin lease roads.
Long, straight interstates, heavy freight between the Texas Triangle metros and the Mexico border, and a state law that allows trucks with no driver drew them here. The same state laws cover robotaxis; see Texas Robotaxi Deployments.
| Operator | Where | Status | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aurora | Dallas-Houston, Fort Worth-El Paso, El Paso-Phoenix, Fort Worth-Phoenix, Dallas-Laredo | About 30 driverless trucks; 440,000 driverless miles by June 2026; second-generation trucks with no observer since July 23, 2026 | Driver as a Service: licenses the system to carriers |
| Bot Auto | Houston-Dallas (I-45) | First commercial load with no one aboard and no remote operator, April 29, 2026 | Runs its own fleet |
| Gatik | Dallas-Fort Worth and other metros | Fully driverless middle-mile runs since January 2026 | Short warehouse-to-store routes |
| Kodiak (Nasdaq: KDK) | Permian Basin | 28 driverless trucks hauling frac sand for Atlas Energy (March 2026); 100 planned by mid-2027 | Private lease roads; public roads expected 2027 |
| Waabi with Volvo | Dallas-Houston | Customer hauls for Warp since October 5, 2026, with an observer in the driver's seat | Volvo VNL Autonomous trucks |
| Torc Robotics (Daimler Truck) | Laredo-Dallas (I-35), through San Antonio and Austin | Testing on public roads since April 2025; driverless launch targeted for 2027 | Factory-built Freightliner Cascadia trucks |
| PlusAI | Texas pilot with Ryder | SPAC terminated April 2026; commercial launch moved to 2027 | Factory-installed with Traton's International |
Aurora
Aurora: 10 Routes and a 200-Truck Goal
Aurora opened Fort Worth-El Paso in October 2025 and tripled its network to 10 routes in February 2026, adding Phoenix and Laredo. Its second-generation trucks entered service on July 23, 2026 with no observer aboard; its FirstLight lidar sees about 1,000 m, and manufacturing partner Roush is targeting a rate of 1,000 trucks a year by the end of 2026. Aurora aims for about 200 trucks by year end.
Customers include Hirschbach Motor Lines, which signed on April 30, 2026 for 500 Aurora Driver subscriptions with deliveries from 2027, McLane, Detmar Logistics and freight for Driscoll's. Hirschbach plans a hybrid network: driverless trucks on long hauls, drivers on shorter runs that get them home daily.
Torc
Torc and Daimler: I-35 Through Austin
Torc Robotics, the Blacksburg, Virginia company Daimler Truck has controlled since 2019, opened its first hub at AllianceTexas in Fort Worth on May 13, 2025: 22,000 sq ft of offices on an 18-acre site, planned to run around the clock. Its first driverless lane is Laredo to Dallas on I-35, through San Antonio and Austin; Laredo handles nearly 40% of trucks entering the US from Mexico.
Daimler Truck North America supplies the trucks: an autonomous-ready version of the fifth-generation Freightliner Cascadia, built on the factory line with redundant braking, steering and power for the self-driving system. Torc ran driverless tests on a Texas track in 2024 and began public-road testing on the Laredo-Dallas lane in April 2025. It targets a driverless launch in 2027, then El Paso, Houston and Shreveport, Louisiana, and later I-40 routes to Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Memphis and Atlanta.
Corridors
Where the Trucks Run
| Route | Distance | Operators | What it carries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas-Houston (I-45) | About 240 miles | Aurora, Bot Auto, Waabi | The first commercial driverless lane in the US; heavy freight between the two largest metros |
| Fort Worth-El Paso (I-20, I-10) | About 600 miles | Aurora | A 10-hour run that strains drivers' hours-of-service limits |
| El Paso and Fort Worth to Phoenix (I-10) | Up to about 1,000 miles | Aurora | Southwest long haul |
| Dallas-Laredo (I-35) | About 430 miles | Aurora; Torc testing | Freight to the busiest US-Mexico land port, through San Antonio and Austin |
| Permian lease roads | Field routes | Kodiak | Frac sand for oil and gas wells; see Permian Basin |
AllianceTexas in Fort Worth and the Southern Dallas County Inland Port around Lancaster, Wilmer and Hutchins are the North Texas hubs these routes start from; Bot Auto's Houston run ends at a truck stop in Hutchins.
Rules
State Law and New Federal Steps
Senate Bill 2205 (2017) allows trucks with no driver on Texas roads, and Senate Bill 2807 (2025) requires commercial operators to hold Texas Department of Motor Vehicles authorization from May 28, 2026. On October 7, 2026 the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration granted a five-year exemption letting driverless trucks use cab-mounted warning beacons in place of the warning triangles a driver would set out. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee advanced the BUILD America 250 Act, the first federal framework for driverless trucks, 62-2 in May 2026. The Teamsters are suing California over its driverless truck rules; Texas has no comparable fight.
Tesla Semi
Tesla Semi Enters Volume Production
Tesla began volume production of the Semi at its Nevada plant, built for 50,000 trucks a year, around September 24, 2026, at quoted prices of about $260,000 to $290,000. Tesla has not announced driverless operation for the Semi; it says the truck's electric steering lays the groundwork for it.
Constraints
What Limits the Pace
- Fleet size: Aurora runs about 30 driverless trucks against a goal of 200 by year end; Kodiak's Permian fleet is 28.
- Observers: Waabi's Texas runs still carry one; Aurora's second-generation trucks have run without one since July 2026.
- Shakeout: operators fail; Embark wound down in 2023 and sold to Applied Intuition for $71M, and PlusAI's public listing fell through in 2026.
- Labor: the Teamsters oppose driverless trucks in other states and could press Texas when the Legislature returns in 2027.
Record
Dataset Record
- Sources
- Aurora, Bot Auto, Gatik, Kodiak and Atlas, Torc Robotics, Daimler Truck, Transport Topics, Trucking Dive, Volvo, FMCSA, TxDMV, FreightWaves, TechCrunch, Electrek
- Last verified
- October 2026