Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Waabi began hauling customer freight with autonomous trucks between Dallas and Houston, the companies announced Monday, expanding the use of self-driving commercial transportation along one of Texas’ busiest freight corridors.
The Volvo announcement said Volvo VNL Autonomous trucks powered by the Waabi Driver are now moving freight for logistics company Warp directly to third-party facilities along the Dallas-Houston corridor. The trucks are operating autonomously, although an observer currently remains in the driver’s seat.
Freight Moves Into Customer Operations
The launch marks the first customer operation under Volvo Autonomous Solutions’ partnership with Waabi.
Warp operates a freight network handling both less-than-truckload, or LTL, and full-truckload shipments. Unlike a dedicated route carrying freight for a single customer, LTL networks can combine shipments from multiple customers while coordinating different destinations, schedules, and loads.
“Together with Warp and Waabi, we are bringing autonomous freight into customer operations in one of logistics’ most demanding segments,” Nils Jaeger, president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions, said in Monday’s announcement. “This shows how quickly our ecosystem can adapt to new customers and more complex operations.”
Volvo said its autonomous transport system combines the truck and Waabi’s autonomous-driving technology with fleet and transport management, terminals, customer endpoints, operations, and vehicle support.
The Volvo VNL Autonomous was designed with redundant systems covering six safety-critical functions, according to the company.
For now, however, the operation is not humanless.
“Currently autonomous hauls are run with an observer in the driver’s seat,” Volvo stated.
Volvo is not new to autonomous freight operations on the Dallas-Houston corridor. In May, Volvo Autonomous Solutions announced that it had begun carrying freight for DSV between Aurora terminals in Dallas and Houston using the Volvo VNL Autonomous integrated with the Aurora Driver. A safety driver was present during the initial phase.
The new Warp operation differs by pairing Volvo’s truck with Waabi’s autonomous-driving system and moving freight directly to third-party facilities, including within LTL networks.
Dallas-Houston Autonomous Race Accelerates
The announcement comes less than two weeks after The Dallas Express reported that Kodiak AI selected the Dallas-Houston corridor for its first planned fully driverless long-haul highway operation.
Kodiak said in September that it was consistently completing end-to-end freight runs between its Lancaster hub and Houston without human intervention by its autonomous-driving system, while keeping a human aboard as it prepares for unsupervised operations. The company is targeting a driverless launch before the end of 2026.
The corridor already hosts other autonomous freight operations.
Aurora Innovation launched commercial driverless trucking between Dallas and Houston in 2025. After initially operating without a person in the driver’s seat, Aurora later returned observers to the front seat of some trucks at manufacturer PACCAR’s request, as The Dallas Express reported. Aurora said at the time that its autonomous-driving system remained responsible for all driving tasks.
The Dallas Express later reported that Aurora expanded its Dallas-Houston service to nighttime runs along I-45.
Earlier this year, The Dallas Express reported that Bot Auto and Ryan Transportation were preparing humanless freight operations between Houston and the Dallas area.
Gatik has also expanded its autonomous freight presence in Texas. DX reported in June that PepsiCo and Gatik were operating fully driverless medium-duty trucks as part of a multistate commercial deployment that includes Texas.
Volvo, Waabi Plan Expansion
Volvo and Waabi said experience gathered from the Dallas-Houston operation will be used to prepare for additional routes and broader deployment.
“What we learn on the Dallas–Houston corridor will help us strengthen our partnership and continuously improve the ecosystem as we scale,” Jaeger said.
Waabi COO Lior Ron said the Warp deployment demonstrates how the technology can operate beyond tightly controlled terminal-to-terminal freight routes.
“Our work with Warp is the first milestone on that path, demonstrating that the Volvo VNL Autonomous, powered by the Waabi Driver, can take on the full range of real-world freight, from operating within less-than-truckload networks to moving goods directly to third-party facilities, meeting customers where they are,” Ron said.
The companies did not announce a date for removing the onboard observer from the Dallas-Houston runs.
With Volvo and Waabi now carrying customer freight, the roughly 240-mile Dallas-Houston corridor has attracted multiple competing autonomous-trucking companies using different technology and operating models, while others are preparing to remove human drivers from the cab entirely.
Provided by Dallas Express
