Atlas grows Kodiak driverless truck fleet to 100 rigs

One of autonomous trucking’s most convincing commercial proof points isn’t running down an interstate. It’s hauling frac sand along a 42-mile conveyor in the Permian Basin.

Atlas Energy Solutions (NYSE: AESI) announced Friday an expansion of its driverless proppant delivery program with Kodiak AI (Nasdaq: KDK), adding a second simultaneous load-out point along its Dune Express sand conveyor system. The companies also agreed to a timetable that grows the Atlas driverless truck fleet from 28 trucks to 100 by mid-2027.

Two Depots, One Basin The second load-out point changes what Atlas can promise to a customer. Atlas is now running driverless trucks concurrently from sites in Texas and New Mexico, roughly 90 minutes apart. Previously, its autonomous trucks worked one load-out point at a time.

The practical effect: Atlas can serve well sites across a wider slice of the Permian at the same time, rather than sequencing deliveries around a single origin. Atlas supplies proppant to oil and gas producers and manages last-mile delivery to the well site, pairing mining and transportation automation with logistics management.

Sand is the least glamorous input in a completion job and one of the most schedule-sensitive. A crew waiting on sand is a crew burning money. “This partnership with Kodiak is a critical part of the Atlas strategy to transform oilfield sand logistics through innovation,” said John Turner, CEO and president of Atlas Energy Solutions.

“Our mission is to seek critical energy infrastructure with inefficiencies, then engineer solutions that improve efficiency, reduce risk and enhance our customers’ operational success.” A Driverless Truck Fleet Measured in Tons Atlas has scaled its autonomous program steadily since its first driverless deployments in 2024.

As of March 31, 2026, the company operated 28 driverless trucks across 15 distinct routes. Those trucks have carried roughly 7,000 loads and hauled more than 450,000 tons of sand. The fleet logged more than 23,500 driverless hours in the first quarter of 2026 alone.

The single-day record came on July 20, when Kodiak-powered trucks delivered 176 loads of sand. That is the highest daily count across 18 months of driverless deployments with Atlas in the Permian Basin. In the release, Kodiak notes it became the first company to deploy customer-owned and -operated driverless trucks in commercial service in 2024.

The trucks run the Kodiak Driver, an autonomous system pairing the company’s software with modular, vehicle-agnostic hardware. “Together, Atlas and Kodiak have deployed the world’s largest fleet of driverless big-rig trucks,” said Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak.

Three Trailers, 135 Tons Earlier this year, the two companies introduced a capability that lets a single autonomous truck haul three connected trailers at once. Atlas and Kodiak describe it as the first autonomous triple-trailer trucking operation, with a combined loaded weight above 135 tons. For a sand hauler, that math adds up.

Fewer tractors moving the same tonnage compresses cost per ton on the most repetitive leg of a completion job. The Public Road Test Ahead Looking ahead, Atlas and Kodiak expect the fleet to operate on public roads in early 2027. Kodiak-equipped Atlas trucks can already operate in mixed/two-way traffic.

Timing is subject to regulatory and operational milestones, and so is the 100-truck target. “We’ve demonstrated that autonomous trucking is delivering meaningful results today,” Burnette said.

“Our expanding partnership, which now covers two unique locations, is creating a blueprint for how autonomy can transform logistics by improving efficiency, increasing productivity, and delivering lasting value for customers at commercial scale.” The post Atlas grows Kodiak driverless truck fleet to 100 rigs appeared first on FreightWaves.