Kodiak and IKEA: Driverless Trucks Set to Roll on I-45 by the End of 2026
IKEA will be the first customer of Kodiak’s driverless long-haul freight. Runs with nobody in the cab are planned by the end of 2026 on a 219-mile stretch of I-45.
Key facts
On September 29, 2026, Kodiak announced that IKEA will be the first customer of its driverless long-haul service.
The driver-out launch is planned by the end of 2026 on a 219-mile stretch of I-45 between Dallas and Houston.
That stretch is part of a 292-mile route from IKEA’s distribution center in Baytown to its store in Frisco.
According to Kodiak, over four years it has delivered more than 1,300 IKEA loads and logged more than 750,000 autonomous miles, with a safety observer on board.
There are no driver-out runs on I-45 yet: the company is still preparing its safety case.
Source: FreightWaves, Fox Business, Robotics 247