IKEA Turns to Driverless Trucks With No One in the Cab

Kodiak AI plans to haul IKEA shipments on Texas highways with no one in the cab, raising immediate cybersecurity and safety questions for drivers.

VP says the Kodiaq brings safety to long-distance hauling

Kurt "Cyber Guy" Knutson spoke with Daniel Goff, Kodiak AI's VP of External Affairs, about how attitudes toward self-driving trucks have changed over time.

Soon you can be driving down a Texas highway, look up at a huge transport truck and realize that the driver's seat is completely empty. The Kodiak AI plans to begin transporting IKEA products between the Dallas and Houston areas with no one in the cab later this year. The company has spent years preparing for this step, but removing the safety watchdog changes the equation.

What happens if something breaks while the truck is traveling at highway speeds? Is someone secretly driving it from the control room? How does it react to a police car or an ambulance? And yes, I wanted to know what would keep a hacker from going near something as important as a steering wheel or brakes. So, I put these questions directly to Kodiak's founder and CEO, Don Burnette, to find out how the company says these driverless trucks will fare.

Unmanned cargo aircraft could change the way packages move

A semi-autonomous Kodiak sits outside an IKEA store, and the company is getting ready to carry cargo without anyone in the cab. (Kodiak AI)

Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson shares practical ways to stay safer, smarter, and more confident in technology. Explore classes on stopping spam, phone security, financial protection, and using artificial intelligence to get better healthcare. Each class is free, easy to follow, and comes with a free printable checklist.

View classes and register

Why does Kodiak believe it is ready to remove the driver?

"The decision to remove the driver is not based on any tests or milestones," Brent told CyberGuy. "It's the result of years of operational experience, rigorous validation and a clear safety case that gives us a clear, evidence-based framework for determining when a Kodiak driver is ready to operate without someone in the cab."

Kodiak calls its autonomous driving system Kodiak Driver. The company is also using something called Automated Readiness Measurement, or ARM, to track its progress on long-haul unmanned trucks.

By the end of September, Kodiak said 96 percent of the claims and evidence required for the long-haul safety case were materially complete, up from 93 percent at the end of August. Remaining work includes engineering verification, validation and final safety assessments. Kodiak expects to complete this before launching driverless long-distance services by the end of 2026. The company also has experience in the commercial implementation of empty cab trucks.

Kodiak-powered trucks will be operating unmanned for Atlas Energy Solutions in the Permian Basin starting in December 2024. By the end of the second quarter, Burnett says, 35 driverless trucks were operating commercially there, logging more than 40,000 hours of paid driverless operation. To put things into perspective, that's the equivalent of over 4 1/2 years of non-stop driving. So IKEA's path will take the Kodiaq to a different level, but removing the driver itself won't be new territory for the company.

What changes when the IKEA driver leaves the cab?

I asked Burnette what I-45 drivers will actually notice once the new service begins. His answer was very straightforward. "The biggest difference is that there will be no one in the cabin," he said.

The driverless segment covers 219 miles, mostly along Interstate 45 between the Kodiak facility in the Dallas and Houston areas. The segment is part of a longer 292-mile delivery route that connects IKEA's distribution center in Baytown to its store in Frisco.

Kodiak has been carrying IKEA products for four years with a safety inspector on the way. During that time, companies have also been figuring out the less obvious parts of automated transportation, such as when trucks leave, when they arrive at their destinations, and how to schedule maintenance.

The trucks themselves have additional systems built into critical safety components including braking, steering, power and computing. From the outside, the drive itself should look pretty boring, and that's exactly what we want," Burnett said. The Kodiak driver is designed to be predictable, polite, conservative and defensive. To be honest, boring is exactly what I think we all want from a giant truck with no one behind the wheel.

What happens if something breaks while the truck is moving?

This was high on my list of questions. "We designed the Kodiak driver around the idea that eventually something will go wrong, whether it's a mechanical problem, a damaged sensor or an unexpected road situation," Burnette said. The important thing is that the truck knows in advance what to do if it happens.

Burnette says the Kodiak driver continuously monitors more than 1,000 safety-critical components in the truck, sensors, hardware and autonomous software. If the system detects a serious problem, it can switch from normal driving to what Kodiak calls a reverse maneuver. This process is designed to bring the truck to a controlled stop in a safe location.

Kodiak also sets limits on where and under what conditions the truck can operate. In the world of autonomous vehicles, that's called the operational design domain, or ODD. You can think of ODD as the approved operating limits of the truck. If the situation is outside of what the system is designed and tested to handle, Burnett says the truck can fall back instead of continuing as if nothing has changed.

DOORDASH receives FAA approval for its delivery drones

Does anyone remotely drive the truck?

No one will be in the cabin, but people will still see what's going on. Kodiak has a command center south of Dallas. However, Burnette doesn't describe those workers as remote drivers on standby.If a Kodiak driver encounters a situation he can't safely resolve, he can activate his fallback system and then, as Burnette puts it, "call home for help." The command center can provide guidance on what the truck should do.

This is different from someone taking the wheel from miles away. "We use additional communication channels to make sure we stay in touch with the truck, but if the connection is lost, the Kodiak driver still needs to be able to respond safely on his own," Burnett said.

That last part is especially important. If the cell phone connection or communication goes down, the truck can't simply sit there and wait for someone in the command center to tell it what to do. Kodiak says the vehicle still needs to bring itself to a safe state.

What happens when the police or an ambulance shows up?

Highway driving involves situations that go beyond staying between lanes. The police pull the cars over. Ambulances approach from behind. Accident scenes can suddenly change the flow of traffic. A truck with no one in its cab still needs to recognize and respond to what is happening around it.

Kodiak says its autonomous system is designed to detect emergency vehicles, stopped vehicles, lane closures and accident scenes. The system can slow down or speed up as needed. The company also spent time working directly with first responders.

Kodiak employs a retired California Highway Patrol officer who works with law enforcement to run how to interact with driverless trucks. The company also has a written First Responder Interaction Plan that explains what responders should do if they encounter one of its vehicles.

If the Kodiak truck stops along the road, another technology comes into play. Kodiak has integrated HAAS Alert Cloud Safety. The system can send digital alerts about a stopped truck to nearby drivers through compatible navigation apps and car systems.

Could a hacker take over one of these driverless semis?

You knew I was going to ask this one. When software takes control of an 18-wheeler, cybersecurity becomes a major part of the conversation. I asked Burnette what would prevent someone from hacking into the truck and interfering with systems like the steering or brakes. "Cybersecurity is something we take very seriously," he said.

Cybersecurity is one of the six pillars of Kodiak's safety case, Burnett says. The company says its approach follows guidelines from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and automotive cybersecurity best practices from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But the part that really stood out to me was how Brent described the limited access to the truck. "First, we've minimized the number of entryways into the truck," he said. We limit information entry points to only those necessary and isolate safety-critical functions such as steering and braking from external communications.

This isolation is important because of the connection with the outside world and should not create a direct window for critical driving systems. Burnette says Kodiak also monitors threats and maintains an incident response process. Burnette also addressed what happens if the truck disconnects. "The safety of the truck is not hinged, and it's designed to bring itself to a safe stop if something goes wrong," Burnett said. No connected vehicle promises that hackers will never target it. That's why I'll be watching for these protections as more driverless trucks hit public highways.

Automatic excavators with empty cabs are digging

The Kodiaq truck uses autonomous driving technology with back-up systems for critical functions including steering and braking. (Kodiak AI)

Who is responsible in the event of an accident with a driverless truck?

With a traditional truck, investigators can look at what the person behind the wheel was doing before the accident. But what happens when no one is behind the wheel? I asked Burnette who would ultimately be responsible if a driverless Kodiak truck crashed. "The liability of a driverless vehicle works like the liability of any vehicle: it depends on the circumstances surrounding the accident," he said.