• Waymo, the autonomous vehicle arm of Google, has extended its partnership with logistics company J.B. Hunt, forming a long-term strategic alliance to deploy fully autonomous trucks commercially for the latter’s operations in Texas in the coming years. This makes J.B. Hunt the first launch customer for Waymo’s fully autonomous operations.

• The companies will further analyze the operational capacity of Waymo’s autonomous cargo transport platform Waymo Via’s Class 8 trucks. The new agreement also includes additional on-highway testing of Class 8 trucks retrofitted with Waymo’s self-driving technology in Texas.

• The companies are also looking to integrate Waymo Via with J.B. Hunt 360—its digital freight matching platform.

• Google’s self-driving tech arm Waymo focuses on both goods and passenger transportation. “Waymo Via” is dedicated to autonomous cargo transportation, including trucking, and its vehicles are powered by “Waymo Driver,” its autonomous driving technology platform. The company has been testing its self-driving trucks since 2018 in various projects in California, Georgia, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Waymo and J.B. Hunt first partnered in July last year for a limited duration pilot to test autonomous trucks between Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. These tests were conducted with an onboard safety driver and a technician to monitor and take control if necessary. However, it's noteworthy that peer companies in the space, such as TuSimple (December 2021) and Gatik (November 2021) have already launched driver-out pilots, while Aurora Innovation and Embark Trucks are also progressing with their plans to begin driverless operations by 2023.</ul>