Volvo Autonomous Solutions drops safety drivers Q1 2027 in Texas

Volvo Autonomous Solutions will remove safety drivers from its autonomous trucks and begin fully driverless highway operations in Texas in the first quarter of 2027. The company disclosed the timeline at Volvo Group's Capital Markets Day, projecting more than 300 autonomous trucks in service by the end of 2027 and industrial scaling starting in 2028. Revenue from the autonomous business is forecast to approach $3 billion within five years.

When does Volvo start running trucks with no driver?

First quarter 2027 in Texas. Aurora Innovation, Volvo's technology partner since 2021, confirmed the milestone in a LinkedIn post: "In Q1 2027, we'll deploy those trucks with nobody behind the wheel in Texas." Volvo Autonomous Solutions currently operates commercially in Texas with safety drivers aboard, moving freight daily on routes between Dallas and Houston, Fort Worth and El Paso, and Dallas to Oklahoma City.

What routes are already running with safety drivers?

Volvo Autonomous Solutions operates three commercial lanes in Texas with safety drivers: Dallas to Houston, Fort Worth to El Paso, and Dallas to Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma City route, launched earlier this year, represents a shift from hub-to-hub transfers to point-to-point delivery directly into customer facilities.

"We are moving freight there daily together with our customers in a real commercial setup autonomously, still with a safety driver," said Sasko Cuklev, head of On-Road Solutions at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. "We are now expanding that to also cover a third lane, which is Dallas to Oklahoma City."

The Oklahoma City route eliminates the drayage segment that previously required separate first- and last-mile operations from autonomous hubs near highways. "We are driving the whole way into the customer facility, which of course removes that drayage piece," Cuklev said. "But it will also require higher operational precision and much deeper integration into the customer."

How fast can Volvo add new autonomous lanes?

The company unlocked the Oklahoma City lane with partner Aurora in approximately four to six weeks. That speed demonstrates how quickly driverless deployment capabilities have matured. Volvo Autonomous Solutions is pursuing network growth based on customer demand. Phoenix, Atlanta, San Antonio, and Laredo are under consideration. California has become particularly attractive following recent regulatory changes opening the state to autonomous trucking.

"We are expanding based on our customers, where they want us to go," Cuklev said. "See it as we are starting around Dallas, and then we are expanding from there, expanding the network."

What is the economic case for autonomous trucks?

Asset utilization. Trucks that sit idle during parts of the day can operate around the clock with autonomous technology, unbound by human hours-of-service rules. "The most important impact? Doubling asset utilization," Volvo Autonomous Solutions stated in its Capital Markets Day presentation. "This is a change the industry cannot ignore."

Cuklev noted that realizing those gains requires more than autonomous-capable trucks. The company has built an uptime network with its dealers across operating lanes to ensure high availability. "One of the big benefits with autonomous is that you should be able to utilize the truck much, much more than a manually driven truck," Cuklev said. "But in order to do that, you need to have the truck available and high uptime. So that is super important, and sometimes it feels like we don't talk about that enough."

How many trucks will Volvo have on the road?

From a current base of approximately 20 trucks, Volvo Autonomous Solutions plans to reach more than 300 by the end of 2027 and begin industrial scaling in 2028. The scaling trajectory is steep, but the company is prioritizing operational readiness over speed.

"For us, it's important that we do it right," Cuklev said. "Better to spend a couple of extra months or extra weeks to make it right than to rush it. And then when we get it right, I think the expansion will come naturally."

Aurora, Volvo's technology partner, described the Q1 2027 driverless deployment in Texas as the culmination of years of collaboration. The partnership led to the 2024 debut of the Volvo VNL Autonomous integrated with the Aurora Driver and will deliver the first fully driverless commercial operations next year.

What should fleets do now?

Engage. For fleet operators and shippers, Cuklev offered direct advice: "If you're a customer, engage. Start to engage with us, and we will sit down and share the plans for how we will expand. We can start small and start to move some loads together. We learn together, we understand what this is, because one of the most important things for our customers is to guide them and help them in their own transformation."

The Oklahoma City route's point-to-point delivery model requires deeper integration into customer operations than hub-to-hub transfers. Fleets considering autonomous operations should expect to work through facility access, loading-dock protocols, and operational handoffs that differ from traditional driver-based delivery. The four-to-six-week timeline to add the Oklahoma City lane suggests that once the core technology is proven, network expansion depends more on customer readiness and route validation than on hardware or software development cycles.

Volvo's uptime network with dealers across operating lanes addresses a critical gap in autonomous economics. Doubling asset utilization only works if the truck is available to run. A breakdown that would cost a conventional fleet one shift costs an autonomous operator two. The dealer network is a hedge against that risk, but fleets should ask what parts availability, diagnostic capability, and response times look like in practice on the lanes they care about before committing freight to autonomous capacity.