Why Autonomous Vehicles Could Be in for a Breakout: Hyperdrive

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The RoboTruck Arrives

Kodiak Robotics just announced a significant development in autonomous trucking. The startup has sold completely driverless trucks to Atlas Energy Solutions, an oil and gas service company that will use the rigs to ferry loads of fracking sand around a 75,000-mile patch in the Permian Basin in West Texas.

It’s only two trucks, and they’ll drive on a combination of public and private roads. That’s easy duty compared to navigating San Francisco’s busy Embarcadero, as companies including Alphabet’s Waymo have been doing. But with ...