German company Vay is providing remote-controlled human driving for trucks fitted with California-based Kodiak’s autonomous driving technology.

This means Kodiak will be able to complement its fully autonomous operations with remote human assistance as needed.

Through this partnership, Vay’s technology is helping enable Kodiak’s proprietary Assisted Autonomy technology. Assisted Autonomy allows a human to control a truck remotely in certain low-speed and clearly-defined scenarios that benefit from human involvement. Assisted Autonomy is part of the functionality of the autonomous Kodiak Driver offering.

To help support Assisted Autonomy, Kodiak has deployed Vay Stations, as well as software tools that enable low-latency communications between the stations and Kodiak Driver-powered vehicles. This allows Kodiak Driver to handle a broader range of driving scenarios.

Kodiak currently uses Vay’s technology to provide Assisted Autonomy support when needed to Kodiak Driver-powered trucks, which are operating fully driverlessly in the Permian Basin of west Texas and eastern New Mexico. Additionally, Kodiak Driver uses Vay’s technology to support Assisted Autonomy with long-haul users for launching and landing trucks at facilities and other low-speed driving scenarios, such as interpreting law enforcement hand signals.

“Assisted Autonomy provides the Kodiak Driver with more flexibility to deliver our customers’ freight in a greater range of locations and scenarios,” said Don Burnette, CEO of Kodiak. “No matter the maturity of an autonomous driving system, there are still scenarios that will benefit from human assistance, if only as a backup. Assisted Autonomy can be helpful in situations such as interpreting law enforcement hand signals. Rather than recreating the wheel on remote assistance, we have chosen to partner with Vay, in our opinion the industry leader, which we believe will expedite our ability to safely scale.”

Assisted Autonomy is a hybrid approach that blends remote support with onboard autonomy to enable flexibility and safety. Assisted Autonomy therefore combines the value of human decision-making with the rigorous safety controls of the autonomous system.

“Over the last year, Vay has proven the use cases for remote driving both in B2C and B2B settings,” said Thomas von der Ohe, CEO of Vay. “The strategic partnership with Kodiak will expand the B2B use cases to trucks. We are excited to partner with Kodiak to help make trucking and freight delivery safer and more efficient by marrying the value of human decision-making with autonomous operations.”

Through this partnership, Vay’s stations and connectivity stack let Kodiak implement Assisted Autonomy and real-time streaming of a near 360-degree view of the area around Kodiak’s trucks. All Assisted Autonomy drivers hold commercial driver’s licences and undergo rigorous training. When driving, they sit at a Vay Station with a steering wheel, pedals and other intuitive vehicle controls developed in accordance with automotive industry standards.

Kodiak and Vay ensure robust communication with the trucks using multiple redundant communications protocols, offering a unique driver-out option that facilitates broad operational capabilities.

In 2023, Vay became the first and is still the only known company to drive cars without a human driver inside the car on European public roads. In January 2024, Vay began its commercial services in Las Vegas, Nevada, offering residents and visitors the opportunity to request a remotely delivered rental car to their location via Vay’s app. Since its launch, users have taken more than 10,000 commercial trips. Vay’s technology has earned an endorsement from TÜV SÜD (www.tuvsud.com) for functional safety and cyber security as a result of extensive analysis and testing.

Vay develops automotive-grade technology for remote driving. Through the Vay app, users can request an electric vehicle be remotely delivered to their location. After the car has arrived, the user takes over and drives it like a regular rental car. At the end of the trip, the user exits the car, and a remote driver takes over, eliminating the time-consuming search for parking. This creates a door-to-door mobility service at about half the price of ride-hailing services. Since its launch, users have taken thousands of rides and can hail a Vay car at a wide variety of locations throughout Las Vegas, including the busiest hotels on the Strip. Vay has recently expanded its offering to include B2B services, enabling remote driving for private cars, trucks, vans and autonomous vehicles, among others.

Founded in Berlin in 2018 by Thomas von der Ohe, Fabrizio Scelsi and Bogdan Djukic, Vay (vay.io) employs 150 people combining software from Silicon Valley and automotive engineering from Europe. Vay has raised close to $150m in funding.

Kodiak Robotics (kodiak.ai) was founded in 2018 and is a provider of AI-powered autonomous vehicle technology designed to help tackle some of the toughest driving jobs.