Kodiak, J.B.Hunt Transport Services, and Bridgestone Americas partnership hits 50,000 autonomous miles

Earlier today, a trio of well-known companies across three different vertical markets heralded a significant autonomous trucking milestone.

The companies—Lowell, Ark.-based J.B. Hunt Transport Services, a subsidiary of Lowell, Ark.-based trucking and intermodal services bellwether J.B. Hunt; Nashville-based Bridgestone Americas, a global provider of premium tires and sustainable mobility solutions; and Kodiak Robotics Inc., a Mountain Valley, Calif.-based autonomous trucking company—said that its weekly delivery collaboration has officially topped 50,000 autonomous long-haul trucking miles.

This endeavor, which kicked off in January, is comprised of Kodiak’s autonomous trucks hauling Bridgestone’s passenger car tires between South Carolina and Dallas, according to the companies. And they added that over this period there have been no accidents, while having hit 100% on-time pick-up and delivery, coupled with the three companies also expanding efforts in the form of more weekly deliveries on the route.

As for how the collaboration works, the companies explained that through Kodiak’s hub-to-hub autonomous delivery model, the long-haul stretch of the route from Atlanta to Dallas, which they said is approximately 750 miles and 16 hours—is completed using Kodiak autonomous driving technology, and fitted with Bridgestone M719 drive tires and R213 steer tires. They also noted that J.B. Hunt transports the trailers to and from Bridgestone facilities and Kodiak hubs, with the companies using J.B. Hunt 360box, a network more than 14,000 company trailers, to secure capacity for the return trip from Dallas, as well as preventing empty miles and improve route efficiency.

In describing how they work together to deliver the Bridgestone tires and also reduce empty miles, the companies laid out the following steps:

The collaboration provides a round-trip solution for delivering Bridgestone passenger car tires and minimizing empty miles for efficiency:

• J.B. Hunt moves the load from Bridgestone’s Aiken Passenger Tire plant in Graniteville, SC to Kodiak’s Atlanta-area autonomous truckport in Villa Rica, Georgia;
• Kodiak autonomous trucks complete the long-haul stretch of the route from Atlanta to Kodiak’s Lancaster, Texas facility. A two-person-team of Kodiak safety drivers oversee the seamless and continuous operation of the autonomous truck;
• J.B. Hunt transports the load approximately 50 miles from Lancaster to Bridgestone’s Roanoke distribution center; and
• for the trip from Dallas to Atlanta, J.B. Hunt leverages its J.B. Hunt 360box program to identify additional customers with live and drop freight needs along that route. Kodiak completes the delivery autonomously to Atlanta, and then J.B. Hunt transports the load to its next destination

The origins of this collaboration go back to June 2021, when Bridgestone said it made an investment into Kodiak and established a partnership, with a key part of the partnership being Bridgestone’s integration of its smart-sensing tire technologies into Kodiak’s autonomous trucks and integrating smart tire technologies to further enhance vehicle intelligence for a safer, more efficient, and more sustainable mobility future.

“Working closely with Kodiak and Bridgestone, we were able to deliver a complementary solution that integrates autonomous technology with day-to-day operations while also solving backhaul challenges,” said Nick Hobbs, chief operating officer and president of contract services at J.B. Hunt, in a statement. “It’s a great example of how our mode-neutral approach can leverage multiple service offerings to produce efficient, value-driven solutions unique to our customers’ needs.”

And Brad Blizzard, Vice President, Logistics Operations and Product Delivery, Bridgestone noted that as part of the company’s evolution into a global leader in sustainable mobility solutions, Bridgestone joined forces with Kodiak and J.B. Hunt to prove that autonomous long-haul shipping is more than just a daydream.

“It’s happening right now,” he said “We are excited to be expanding our routes, growing this partnership, and investing in the mobility of the future.”

In an interview with LM, Michael Wiesinger, VP Commercialization & General Manager Transportation Sector, Kodiak, said that a key driver for this collaboration was Bridgestone wanting to include autonomous transportation into its supply chain and be part of what he called a revolution of autonomous transportation going forward, and then talked to J.B. Hunt and subsequently Kodiak in looking to get things started.

“We jointly designed that transport solution and proposed it to Bridgestone and they were super-excited to come up with that to integrate J.B. Hunt, and we then launched it in January,” he said.

Prior to this collaboration, Wiesinger said that Kodiak had done previous autonomous trucking pilots, including: Dallas to Houston; Dallas to Oklahoma City; and Dallas to Houston.
“When you think about autonomous trucking, the longer the haul, the better it is, from a benefits perspective, because it is super-hard to find drivers, especially team drivers, for long-haul trucking,” he explained. “A driver needs to live on the road for weeks at a time. That is what we are focused on. A Dallas to Houston run is simpler when you have a safety driver in there, because the driver gets home the same day. Dallas to Atlanta is a little trickier, because you need teams, but it is showing the value.”

And when the companies were initially collaborating, they said it made the most sense to do it on lanes that made the most sense into the future, which made Dallas to Atlanta a logical choice.