Autonomous Trucking Approaches Inflection Point

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LAS VEGAS — After many years of development work, autonomous trucks are now on the cusp of commercial driverless operations on highways, in logistics yards and on private sites.

Several developers and trucking industry experts shared their outlooks for autonomous trucking during a pair of panel discussions at the 2025 Manifest supply chain and logistics technology conference, held Feb. 10-12.

“I personally think we’re at an inflection point,” said Dustin Koehl, chief operating officer at Covenant Logistics.

What felt like a science experiment several years ago has become more concrete as developers have worked with fleet operators to better understand their challenges and how autonomy could help solve them.

Koehl, whose career in trucking has included time at self-driving trucking firm Waabi and truckload carrier U.S. Xpress Enterprises, acknowledged that a level of fatigue with autonomous vehicles has set in among some trucking companies, but he also noted significant progress in this field.

I’ll now make a bold statement: The technology is solved. Now it’s really about building a product and building a real business which is safe, which can scale. This takes time.

Peter Vaughn Schmidt, Torc Robotics CEO

Today, truck makers are moving toward production of autonomous truck platforms with redundant safety systems to enable driverless operation, while artificial intelligence is enabling developers to iterate and design products faster, he said.

Covenant, based in Chattanooga, Tenn., ranks No. 40 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America and No. 76 on the TT Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies.

Moving forward, the remaining obstacles for autonomous trucking are less about technical barriers than about integrating the …