FRISCO, Texas — Mountain View, California-based self-driving trucking company Kodiak Robotics has been partnering with IKEA Supply Chains Operations since August to use its autonomous trucks to deliver supplies to its store in Frisco, according to the company.
The partnership provides IKEA with autonomous heavy-duty trucks to transport the company's products seven days a week between the IKEA distribution center in Baytown and the IKEA store in Frisco. The cooperation began on Aug. 8.
"We are proud to be working with Kodiak to achieve our ambitious goals of being at the forefront of innovation and building capabilities for future transportation," Darius Mroczek, manager of category area transport at IKEA Supply Chain Operations, said in the release. "Kodiak's technology will contribute towards our objective to put the driver in focus in the transition towards automated transportation and towards our road safety agenda."
The self-driving trucks by Kodiak include drivers behind the wheel who load the trailers in the mornings and oversee the delivery to the store by the afternoon.
"Together we can enhance safety, improve working conditions for drivers and create a more sustainable freight transportation system," Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak, said in the release. "Adopting autonomous trucking technology can improve drivers' quality of life by focusing on the local driving jobs most prefer to do."
In April, Kodiak Robotics teamed up with Tennessee-based U.S. Xpress to launch Level 4 autonomous freight service between Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta using the company's self-driving trucks.