PHILADELPHIA — Gatik has received a lot of attention for its rapidly advancing middle-mile autonomous solution. It has signed on major partners such as Walmart, Georgia-Pacific, KBX Logistics and Pitney Bowes.
But the success of the company, like so many others, lies behind the scenes with the work and partnerships it has built with various states and city governments.
Those relationships paid off recently when Kansas and Oklahoma became the 24th and 25th states to give approval for autonomous driving on roadways. While Gatik is only operating without anyone in its vehicles in just one state — Arkansas — the number of states approving the guardrails to such operations is exciting for Richard Steiner, head of policy for the company.
“When engaging with regulators … something that has been appealing to them is Gatik’s middle mile, that it is fixed, repeatable routes and Gatik’s 100% safety record,” he told Modern Shipper at the Home Delivery World conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
That safety record is buoyed by the approach Gatik has taken. Steiner noted that its vehicles may make three right-hand turns rather than a single left-hand turn because statistics show that right-hand turns are safer. Saying that a “bag of groceries won’t complain,” the goal is to get the items to their destination on time and in a safe manner.
“Safety is table stakes. It runs deep in the veins of everyone in the company,” he said. “And we’re very proud of it and we love to talk about it.”
In Arkansas, Gatik is running vehicles between Walmart dark stores and a neighborhood market without anyone in the vehicle, having received approval from the state to do so in December 2020. Steiner said the company will be announcing another customer that will be operating without a safety driver shortly.
“It didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t happen without transparency,” he said, pointing to the time of launch with Walmart to be fully autonomous was about 24 months; the latest one was about 15 months. “As we move forward, we will be able [to accelerate deployments of fully autonomous vehicles].”
Steiner noted that in 25 states, Gatik’s Class 3-6 vehicles can operate in full autonomous mode, but in each case, the company is diligent about collecting data with safety drivers in the vehicle and sharing that data with local officials and safety regulators.
“Even in jurisdictions where there is no requirement to submit that data, we do it anyway because that’s how you [operate] as a good partner,” he said. “We respect [however] long it takes to ensure the regulatory authorities are quite comfortable with our technology.”
While many firms are focused on developing autonomous long-haul trucks, few have ventured into the middle mile where Gatik is operating. Steiner said the focus will remain on the Class 3-6 space because of the consistency of the routes.
“We’re solving an acute need,” he said. “There’s a reason the Walmarts, the Pitney Bowes (NYSE: PBI), the Georgia-Pacifics are coming to us. They have an acute pain point.”
On Wednesday, Gatik announced it would begin running e-commerce routes for Pitney Bowes in the Dallas market in the first quarter of 2023.
Pitney Bowes is the second major customer Gatik has announced it is working with in the Texas region. In June, the company announced a partnership with KBX Logistics to replace 53-foot tractor trailers on a short-haul route with Gatik’s Class 6 Isuzu FTR 26-foot box trucks. Those trucks are hauling product seven days a week from Georgia-Pacific facilities in the area to 34 local Sam’s Club stores.
Steiner noted that only five states have no laws on the books for autonomous vehicles and 21 (including Washington, D.C.) are in some stage of adopting regulations. As more approvals are gained, Steiner expects Gatik’s business to grow. To help it do that, he pointed to the firm’s base of partner companies, including Ryder, Goodyear, Isuzu and Cummins, as key to helping it build and support a national middle-mile autonomy company.
Isuzu and Gatik first announced a partnership in April 2021 when Gatik said it would install its driverless technology in Isuzu’s Class 3 N-Series trucks. Cummins is an engine supplier for Isuzu as well as most other truck makers. Earlier in August, Gatik and Cummins announced an agreement in which Gatik will supply its autonomous vehicle technology to Cummins (NYSE: CMI) for integration with that firm’s advanced powertrain software to enable the use of drive-by-wire in autonomous vehicles.
Gatik has industry partnerships with Goodyear (NASDAQ: GT) for tire-related services, Ryder (NYSE: R) for vehicle lease and maintenance services, and with electric vehicle charging infrastructure company ChargePoint.
Click for more articles by Brian Straight.
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