Leading self-driving trucking company Kodiak Robotics announced its fourth-generation autonomous truck, featuring Luminar's Iris LiDAR, ZF Full Range Radar, Hesai 360-degree scanning LiDARs for side & rear-view detection, Cummins X15TM series engines, Bridgestone Americas smart-sensing tyre technology, and the NVIDIA DRIVE platform.
According to the company, the fourth-generation trucks will debut on-road starting in Q4 of 2021, as Kodiak begins to take delivery of 15 new tractors.
The new generation of self-driving trucks will improve the robustness of the autonomous system as it was designed with improved fleet uptime, manufacturing, and serviceability in mind--all of which are critical to scaling quickly, safely and efficiently.
Don Burnette, Co-founder & CEO, Kodiak Robotics, said, 'Complex and bulky systems that require an engineer to hand-build and hand-tune are expensive, unreliable, and difficult to debug. We believe that reliability and scalability flow from simplicity, and the best hardware modifications should be barely visible. Our fourth-generation platform is designed for simple, scaled production, which means easy calibration, troubleshooting and maintenance for our partners.'
The company has placed an order for an additional 15 PACCAR trucks delivered over the next year. The trucks will more than double its fleet size and help it expand the growing business delivering freight for commercial customers.
Under the hood, Kodiak's fourth-generation trucks will be powered by Cummins X15TMSeries engines. These engines feature the Cummins ADS Powertrain interface, allowing the autonomous system to safely, reliably and securely communicate with the engine. In addition, the 2021 X15TM engines meet EPA and Greenhouse Gas Phase-2 requirements, providing a fuel economy improvement over previous generation engines and further enhancing the environmental benefits of Kodiak autonomous trucks.
The company has shown significant momentum in 2021. Earlier this year, the company announced a contract with the United States Air Force to develop autonomous airbase vehicles. Additionally, it recently announced investments from BMW i Ventures and Bridgestone Americas and collaboration with Bridgestone regarding smart tyre sensing technologies, the company said.