Atlas Energy adopted driverless trucks for the deliveries of West Texas

Atlas Energy Solutions first set up another company. After its first commercial delivery from his 42-mile-dune express funding system, Atlas used two driverless trucks.

After testing the technology that Frac-Sand delivers on a 20-mile off-road route in West-Texas, Atlas can now complete its own driverless deliveries over the 75,000 square miles perm pool.

Since the responsibility, the two robots, which are equipped with Kodiak Robotics’ self-driving system Kodiak drivers, have delivered 100 charges of scholarships.

“It is astonishing how quickly we received 100 deliveries,” said Kyle Turlington, Vice President for Investor Relations at Atlas.

In conversation with the reporter telegram, Turlington said that the company’s goal was to make the autonomous trucks a larger part of its fleet and finally make them a delivery of Dune Express. Currently take the sand from the so -called drop depots to fountain.

“We believe that the Lease Road Network in West texas is an ideal test case for autonomous deliveries. The speeds are slow and traffic is easy, ”said Turlington.

But it is such a disturbing technology that Atlas wants to pursue a slow approach for adaptation, he said.

Turlington estimated that the company produces 1,300 to 1,400 sand deliveries a day.

Since Atlas takes over the truck, “determines Atlas where the trucks go, what they deliver and they maintain,” said Daniel Goff, director of external affairs at Kodiak. “We make the system capable and maintain the platform.”

Kodiak has opened an Odessa office to support the operation of Atlas. A team of 12 Kodiak employees houses the 18,000 square meter facility and is expected to grow to around 20 people by the end of the first quarter.

With the sale to Atlas, Kodiak is the first company in the autonomous truck industry that launched commercial driverless truck operations.

“This is extremely important. We see that autonomous vehicles from curiosity are used to daily, ”Goff told the reporter telegram. Autonomous taxis were seen, he said, and now the addition of the semi-trucks is important because they are an important piece of the changeover of goods.

“It’s an exciting moment. It is exciting that it happens in the Perm basin, ”said Goff. “We consider the Perm basin as a great small sandpit for technology. The Perm basin is a wide-open room at low speeds. It is a good place for our technology and our company. “

And every inhabitant of the PERM basin knows how important the trucks are and how important it is to require qualified commercial drivers, said Goff. He does not see that the autonomous trucks remove jobs for drivers.

“Driverless does not mean humanly,” he said.