Kodiak Robotics, Inc. (“Kodiak”), a leading provider of AI-powered autonomous vehicle technology, and Roush Industries, Inc. (“Roush”), a leading product development supplier serving the mobility, aerospace, defense, and theme park industries, today announced Roush has delivered the first Kodiak Driver-equipped autonomous truck off of its production line. The truck, which Roush upfit at its Livonia, Michigan facility with the Kodiak Driver, Kodiak’s advanced AI-powered autonomous driving system, was delivered to Atlas Energy Solutions Inc. (“Atlas”) in August 2025.
In December 2024, Atlas began taking delivery of Kodiak Driver-equipped trucks and launched driverless operations in the Permian Basin. To date, Atlas has taken delivery of eight Kodiak-powered driverless trucks, as part of an initial 100 truck order under their agreement with Kodiak.
“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, Kodiak. “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.”
Kodiak announced its manufacturing partnership with Roush in June 2025. Since then, Roush has established a dedicated production line to scale the upfitting of trucks equipped with the Kodiak Driver’s modular and vehicle-agnostic hardware. The manufacturing process includes upfitting trucks with the Kodiak Driver’s modular, vehicle-agnostic hardware, including its proprietary SensorPods, AI compute, Actuation Control Engine (ACE) safety compute, and redundant actuation systems. 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, VP Contract Manufacturing, Roush. “We’re playing an important role in putting this technology where it belongs: into commercial service.”
In April 2025, Kodiak announced its plan to go public through a business combination with Ares Acquisition Corporation II (NYSE: AACT) (“AACT,” and such combination the “proposed business combination”). A shareholder vote to approve the proposed business combination is scheduled to be held on Sept. 23, 2025 at 9 a.m. ET. If successful, the combined company intends to list its common stock and public warrants on The Nasdaq Stock Market starting on September 25, 2025 under the proposed symbols “KDK” and “KDKRW,” respectively. This move is expected to accelerate Kodiak’s go-to-market strategy, help meet surging customer demand, tackle critical industry challenges, and position the company to capture a significant share of the trucking industry’s estimated $4+ trillion global market.
SOURCE: Kodiak
