Kodiak Integrates Vay’s Remote Driving Tech to Boost Safety in Self-Driving Trucks

Kodiak Robotics is enhancing the safety and flexibility of its autonomous trucks by adopting remote-driving technology from Vay, a Berlin-based startup. This partnership ushers in a new era where advanced teleoperations work hand-in-hand with autonomous systems, ensuring human oversight in complex on-road conditions.

Strategic Partnership: Kodiak Meets Vay

Since 2024, Kodiak and Vay have been collaborating to deploy Vay's teleoperations capabilities in Kodiak’s fleet of self-driving trucks. This initiative began with driverless deliveries for Atlas Energy Solutions across the Permian Basin and is set to play a critical role when Kodiak launches full-scale commercial autonomous deliveries on Texas highways by late 2026.

How Teleoperations Enhance Autonomous Trucking

Teleoperations, also known as remote driving, act as a vital bridge for autonomous vehicles. While autonomy has advanced rapidly, some real-world scenarios — such as construction zones or unclear human signals — still challenge current AI. With Vay’s system, trained Kodiak staff can remotely assist trucks at low speeds, supplementing the underlying autonomous ‘assisted autonomy’ system.

The remote interface includes a steering wheel, controls, and high-definition screens, allowing a human in a remote location to help clear tricky obstacles. However, the system is designed so the vehicle's core autonomous intelligence continues to set boundaries, protecting against risky maneuvers and ensuring operational safety.

Robust and Versatile: Flexible for Multiple Use Cases

Kodiak's CTO, Andreas Wendel, emphasizes that their hybrid approach allows the tech to handle various vehicle types and loads — from semi trucks to pickups to military transports. For example, in environments like construction zones with unpredictable signals, or situations where military vehicles must reroute quickly, human teleoperators can step in while the core AI still supervises.

The Business Case and Strategic Expansion

Kodiak started exploring teleoperations after winning a U.S. Army contract, seeking proven, reliable remote technology. Partnering with Vay, which built its reputation piloting empty cars to and from users in its car-sharing business, accelerated Kodiak’s internal development and is a milestone for Vay as it expands its B2B footprint.

Vay itself has completed over 10,000 remote-driven commercial trips. Founder Thomas von der Ohe likens the evolution of Vay’s platform to how AWS spun out of Amazon’s core ecommerce business, as Vay offers its robust remote-driving backbone to enterprise partners.

Remote Assistance: A Not-So-Silent Partner for Autonomy

Kodiak’s proprietary ‘assisted autonomy’ enables them to serve customers in demanding scenarios. According to CEO Don Burnette, even as fully driverless technology matures, there are always niche cases where human intuition, as a backup, can prevent costly mistakes or delays.

Deep Founder Analysis

Why it matters

This collaboration is a bellwether for the transportation and logistics sector, revealing how remote human oversight can extend and de-risk autonomous vehicle operations. For founders, it signals that hybrid tech — blending AI automation with real-time human input — could become a gold standard in advanced mobility and robotics.

Risks & opportunities

The main risk is operational complexity and the need to maintain rapid, low-latency communication between remote operators and vehicles — any lag could diminish safety. However, the opportunity is huge: robust teleoperations could unlock broader adoption of AVs in geographies and markets where infrastructure or regulations require always-available human backup. Vay’s pivot from B2C car-sharing to B2B teleoperations is a key example of startups retooling core innovation for new verticals.

Startup idea or application

A promising startup idea would be a cloud platform offering plug-and-play teleoperations capability for a range of robotic and autonomous platforms, not just vehicles but also drones, agricultural machines, or delivery robots. By abstracting the remote-driving stack and integrating safety compliance features, this could greatly accelerate time to market for robotics startups outside transportation.

Autonomous Vehicles Remote Operations Teleoperations Transportation Startup Insights

For more insight on how teleoperations are shaping other industries, see our feature: How Synthflow AI is redefining enterprise voice AI. Also, explore adjacent topics like AI-driven transportation in Feds Question Ford’s BlueCruise: What Startups Need to Know About Hands-Free Driving Investigations.

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