Doritos in Driverless Truck. Robotic News. June 8.

PepsiCo is quietly scaling up driverless trucking for its snack business.The company is working with autonomous trucking startup Gatik to operate a fleet of forty‑one driverless box trucks across Arizona, Texas, and Arkansas. The trucks move Frito‑Lay products like Doritos on fixed, middle‑mile routes between PepsiCo facilities and large retail distribution points.These are medium‑duty box trucks running without a driver in the cab on public roads. Gatik focuses on short, repeatable routes, which are easier to automate than long‑haul or complex urban delivery.Since launching fully driverless freight operations in mid‑2025, Gatik says it has completed tens of thousands of driverless orders without reported incidents, and now counts large retailers and consumer brands among its core customers.For PepsiCo, the appeal is a mix of cost control, predictable service levels, and relief in a tight labor market for commercial drivers. The deployment also fits alongside the company’s push into lower‑emission freight, including battery‑electric trucks on other routes.More broadly, the move signals that autonomous trucking is shifting from pilot programs to day‑to‑day operations in specific, controlled corridors, with major shippers now treating it as part of their standard logistics toolkit... #robotics #roboticnews #dailyroboticnews #pepsi #autonomy #autonomoustruck #droidsnewsletter