Vay's technology allows Kodiak to complement its fully autonomous operations with remote, human assistance as needed.

Vay, a leading provider of automotive-grade remote driving technology, and Kodiak Robotics, a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, have announced a strategic partnership.

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

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

Kodiak currently utilizes 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, the Kodiak Driver uses Vay's technology to support Assisted Autonomy with long-haul customers for launching and landing trucks at customer 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, founder and 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 a remote assistance solution, we have chosen to partner with Vay, in our opinion the industry leader, which we believe will expedite our ability to safely scale."

Blending Remote and Autonomous Driving for Greater Safety and Efficiency

Assisted Autonomy is a hybrid approach that blends remote support with onboard autonomy to create a solution that enables 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. The strategic partnership with Kodiak will expand the B2B use cases to trucks," said Thomas von der Ohe, co-founder and CEO of Vay. "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."

From Innovation to Implementation

Through this partnership, Vay's state-of-the-art Stations and connectivity stack enable Kodiak to implement Assisted Autonomy and real-time streaming of a near 360-degree view of the area around Kodiak's trucks. All of Kodiak's Assisted Autonomy drivers hold Commercial Driver's Licenses and undergo rigorous training. When driving, they sit at one of Vay's Stations 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 solution 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 for functional safety and cybersecurity as a result of extensive analysis and testing.

About Vay
Vay develops automotive-grade technology for remote driving. Through the Vay app, users can request an electric vehicle to 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 the most affordable door-to-door mobility service at 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, the team of over 150 people combines the best of two worlds - software from Silicon Valley and automotive engineering from Europe. Vay has raised close to $150 million in funding from global investors, including Kinnevik, Coatue, Eurazeo, Atomico, La Famiglia (part of General Catalyst), and Creandum, as well as business angels such as F1 World Champion and entrepreneur Nico Rosberg, former Alphabet CFO Patrick Pichette, former Audi CTO Peter Mertens, and Spotify's CTO & CPO Gustav Söderström.

About Kodiak Robotics, Inc.
Kodiak Robotics, Inc. was founded in 2018 and is a leading provider of AI-powered autonomous vehicle technology that is designed to help tackle some of the toughest driving jobs. Kodiak's driverless solution can help address the critical problem of safely transporting goods in the face of unprecedented supply chain challenges. Kodiak's vision is to become the trusted world leader in autonomous ground transportation. Kodiak is committed to a safer and more efficient future for all through the commercialization of driverless trucking at scale. To that end, Kodiak developed the Kodiak Driver, a virtual driver that combines advanced AI-powered software with modular and vehicle-agnostic hardware designed to help address Kodiak's customers' needs. The Kodiak Driver is not just an idea—it is operating without a human driver today. Kodiak serves customers in both commercial trucking and the public sector. In 2024, Kodiak believes it achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first company to deploy customer-owned and -operated driverless trucks in commercial service. The Kodiak Driver is also being utilized in the public sector, where Kodiak believes it can support national security initiatives and critical government applications.