Kodiak Robotics delivers its first factory-made autonomous truck

Roush Industries upfit the vehicles at its Michigan facility for delivery to Atlas Energy Solutions

(Photo: Kodiak Robotics)

Kodiak Robotics announced Wednesday the delivery of its first autonomous truck created directly off a factory production line. Roush Industries, a supplier servicing the mobility, aerospace, defense, and theme park industries, upfitted the truck powered by Kodiak’s virtual driver at its Livonia, Michigan, facility. The truck was then delivered to Atlas Energy Solutions in August.

“Taking delivery of the first Roush-upfitted truck is another example of how the future of freight is arriving,” said Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak, in a press release. “The speed and quality of Roush’s work confirm why we are confident they’re the right partner to help us transform the freight and logistics market at scale. Together, we believe we are well positioned to transform the trucking industry.”

Atlas began taking deliveries of the Kodiak Driver-equipped trucks back in December 2024 when the company placed an initial 100-truck order. To date, Atlas has taken delivery of eight of those driverless trucks.

The manufacturing partnership with Roush was announced back in June 2025. Following the announcement, Roush established a dedicated production line to scale the upfitting of autonomous trucks equipped with the Kodiak Driver. According to the release, Roush and Kodiak intend to scale production into the hundreds of trucks by the end of 2026.

“Delivering the first Roush-upfit truck shows how our contract manufacturing process can meet Kodiak’s high standards while supporting its ability to scale,” said Brad Rzetelny, vice president of contract manufacturing at Roush. “We’re playing an important role in putting this technology where it belongs: into commercial service.”

This news comes as Kodiak announced earlier in April its plan to go public through a SPAC with Ares Acquisition Corporation II. If the merger is successful following a shareholder vote on Sept. 25, the company plans on listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Sept. 25.

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Thomas Wasson

Based in Chattanooga, Tenn., Thomas is a writer and trucking analyst at FreightWaves. He reports on emerging truck technology trends and hosts the Truck Tech and Loaded and Rolling newsletters and podcasts. Previously, he worked at the digital trucking startup aifleet, Arrive Logistics and U.S. Xpress Enterprises. While at U.S. Xpress, he focused on fleet management, load planning, freight analysis and truckload network design.