Autonomous & Self-Driving Vehicle News: Mercedes-Benz, Lenovo, Innoviz, Waymo & Kodiak.

Waymo is growing Waymo One once again, providing more rides in more places in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County.

Waymo is bringing Waymo One to the San Francisco Peninsula for the first time, adding Daly City, Broadmoor, and Colma to its existing, round-the-clock public ride-hailing service. Tomorrow, Waymo will expand its Los Angeles service area to include Marina del Rey, Mar Vista, Playa Vista, and more of Hollywood, Chinatown, and Westwood.

“Our team is laser-focused on refining Waymo One to be as seamless and useful as possible for our riders,” said Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo Chief Product Officer. “This means offering exceptional ride quality, short wait times, and more exciting destinations. Waymo is committed to California, where many of its team members call home, so it’s really special to be able to bring the benefits of full autonomy to even more people in San Francisco and Los Angeles.”

After removing the waitlist for its San Francisco service in June, Waymo has seen incredible demand from locals and visitors alike. Now, its SF operations cover 55 square miles of the Bay Area – from Fisherman’s Wharf to Serramonte Center – and connect to the Daly City and Colma BART Stations, allowing even more people to ride.

Since beginning commercial operations in Los Angeles in March, Waymo has had more than 150 thousand people sign up for the waitlist and has been scaling deliberately to align vehicle supply with rider demand. Angelenos have been enjoying their rides, as the average trip rating has remained above 4.7 out of 5 during this time. Now riders can explore a total of 79 square miles of LA County.

Waymo One is growing steadily, serving well over 50,000 paid rides per week across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. The Waymo Driver is trusted to help parents take their kids to school, vulnerable groups get home safely late at night, and seniors be even more independent, as they all experience the benefits of fully autonomous driving.

In the past few months, Waymo has commercially launched a fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Los Angeles, added 90 square miles to its Metro Phoenix service, and begun curbside airport pickups and drop-offs at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

In total, members of the public have taken more than 2 million paid trips with Waymo, and its vehicles have driven more than 20 million miles fully autonomously. As operations grow, so does evidence that Waymo is improving road safety and reducing traffic injuries and fatalities in the places where it operates.

J.B. Hunt, Bridgestone, & Kodiak hit 50K Autonomous Miles

J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: JBHT), one of the largest supply chain solutions providers in North America, Bridgestone Americas (Bridgestone), a global leader in premium tires and sustainable mobility solutions, and Kodiak Robotics, Inc., a leading autonomous trucking company, today celebrated a successful ongoing weekly delivery collaboration that has surpassed 50,000 autonomous long-haul trucking miles, incorporating Kodiak autonomous trucks to ship Bridgestone passenger car tires between South Carolina and Dallas. Since launching in January, the autonomous route has been driven with no accidents and achieved 100% on-time pick-up and delivery, and the companies have expanded the collaboration to include additional weekly deliveries along the route.

Utilizing Kodiak’s hub-to-hub autonomous delivery model, the long-haul stretch of the route from Atlanta to Dallas – approximately 750 miles and 16 hours – is completed using Kodiak autonomous driving technology, which is fitted with Bridgestone M719 drive tires and R213 steer tires. J.B. Hunt transports the trailers to and from Bridgestone facilities and Kodiak hubs. The companies leverage J.B. Hunt 360box^®, a fluid network of 14,000-plus company trailers, to secure capacity for the return trip from Dallas, preventing empty miles and improving route efficiency.

“Working closely with Kodiak and Bridgestone, we were able to deliver a complementary solution that integrates autonomous technology with day-to-day operations while also solving backhaul challenges,” said Nick Hobbs, chief operating officer and president of contract services at J.B. Hunt. “It’s a great example of how our mode-neutral approach can leverage multiple service offerings to produce efficient, value-driven solutions unique to our customers’ needs.”

Autonomy and Efficiency: A Round-Trip Solution

The collaboration provides a round-trip solution for delivering Bridgestone passenger car tires and minimizing empty miles for efficiency:

• J.B. Hunt moves the load from Bridgestone’s Aiken Passenger Tire plant in Graniteville, SC to Kodiak’s Atlanta-area autonomous truckport in Villa Rica, Georgia.
• Kodiak autonomous trucks complete the long-haul stretch of the route from Atlanta to Kodiak’s Lancaster, Texas facility. A two-person-team of Kodiak safety drivers oversee the seamless and continuous operation of the autonomous truck.
• J.B. Hunt transports the load approximately 50 miles from Lancaster to Bridgestone’s Roanoke distribution center.
• For the trip from Dallas to Atlanta, J.B. Hunt leverages its J.B. Hunt 360box program to identify additional customers with live and drop freight needs along that route. Kodiak completes the delivery autonomously to Atlanta, and then J.B. Hunt transports the load to its next destination.

“As part of our evolution into a global leader in sustainable mobility solutions, Bridgestone joined forces with Kodiak and J.B. Hunt to prove that autonomous long-haul shipping is more than just a daydream; it’s happening right now,” said Brad Blizzard, Vice President, Logistics Operations and Product Delivery, Bridgestone. “We are excited to be expanding our routes, growing this partnership, and investing in the mobility of the future.”

“Our ability to build an autonomous delivery program with J.B. Hunt, one of America’s best-respected and most innovative trucking fleets, and Bridgestone, a longstanding Kodiak investor and a leader in transportation technology, makes this a perfect collaboration,” said Don Burnette, Founder & CEO, Kodiak. “Demonstrating the efficacy of our middle mile model and improving operational efficiencies for our customers sets us all on a course for rapid and sustainable growth.”

Bridgestone announced an investment in and partnership with Kodiak in June 2021. As part of the partnership, Bridgestone has integrated its smart-sensing tire technologies into Kodiak’s autonomous trucks and have integrated smart tire technologies to further enhance vehicle intelligence for a safer, more efficient, and more sustainable mobility future. Bridgestone is also Kodiak’s exclusive tire supplier.

Additionally, J.B. Hunt provides Bridgestone, a Dedicated Contract Services^® customer, with pickup and delivery services for multiple customer locations throughout the country.