Volvo and Waabi start first customer autonomous trucking operation with Warp in Texas
Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Waabi have begun their first customer autonomous freight operation, hauling for open-source freight network Warp along the Dallas–Houston corridor in Texas.
- over $1.3 billion
- at least 25,000
- six
- October 5, 2026
What Happened
Volvo Autonomous Solutions (V.A.S.) and Waabi announced the start of autonomous operation for Warp in Texas, the first customer operation in the Volvo-Waabi partnership. The Volvo VNL Autonomous powered by the Waabi Driver is now transporting freight directly to third-party facilities along the Dallas–Houston corridor. Warp is an open-source freight network that provides less-than-truckload (LTL) and full-truckload (FTL) freight services for carriers and shippers, and it will use the autonomous trucks to move its customers' goods along the corridor. Currently, autonomous hauls are run with an observer in the driver's seat.
- The Volvo VNL Autonomous vehicle
- Waabi's autonomous driving technology
- Fleet and transport management
- Terminals and customer endpoints
- Operations and uptime support
LTL shipping requires dynamic networks to consolidate, haul and distribute goods from multiple customers on tightly coordinated schedules. By moving freight directly between facilities without handoffs, the Volvo VNL Autonomous powered by the Waabi Driver gives LTL providers like Warp a more predictable way to keep their networks on schedule. The two companies say integrating Autona / freight into Warp's freight network creates opportunities to optimize freight flows and support more efficient movement of goods as demand grows. The Volvo VNL Autonomous is built from the ground up for autonomy, with redundancies for six safety-critical systems, and is specifically designed to integrate autonomous driving systems from partners such as Waabi.
“Together with Warp and Waabi, we are bringing autonomous freight into customer operations in one of logistics' most demanding segments. This shows how quickly our ecosystem can adapt to new customers and more complex operations. What we learn on the Dallas–Houston corridor will help us strengthen our partnership and continuously improve the ecosystem as we scale.”
“Waabi and Volvo Autonomous Solutions are building toward a future where autonomous trucks integrate seamlessly into the networks that move freight every day. Our work with Warp is the first milestone on that path, demonstrating that the Volvo VNL Autonomous, powered by the Waabi Driver, can take on the full range of real-world freight, from operating within less-than-truckload networks to moving goods directly to third-party facilities, meeting customers where they are. We're incredibly excited about what's ahead as we continue building that future together with Volvo.”
“Working with Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Waabi demonstrates what Warp's network was built for: bringing advanced technology into the everyday movement of freight. The value of autonomy grows when you can coordinate the freight around it. Warp brings together shipments from multiple customers and aligns routes, capacity, and timing, so advances on a single lane can benefit the broader network.”
With customer operations underway, V.A.S. and Waabi will use real-world experience from the Dallas–Houston lane to prepare for additional routes and support the broader scaling of autonomous freight in the coming years. Warp, which serves customers including Walmart, DoorDash and Gopuff, combines LTL and FTL transportation into a single network, pairing the scale of a distributed carrier network with centralized intelligence and execution. Waabi, founded by AI visionary Raquel Urtasun, says its autonomous trucking technology already moves freight across Texas for Fortune 50 customers, and that it is expanding into robotaxis with at least 25,000 to be deployed on the Uber platform in the coming years; it has raised over $1.3 billion to date.
Previously from Waabi Innovation Inc.
In September 2026, Waabi said its autonomous trucks were hauling more than 80% more freight between Dallas and Houston in 2026, as customer demand pushed it to expand along one of the country's toughest corridors. Earlier in 2026 the company reported that its virtual driver transferred from a Peterbilt to a Volvo VNL without new data and drove autonomously from the first mile, and that it had completed autonomous truck missions on a closed course with no human on board, validating its safety systems before moving to public roads.
- Waabi autonomous freight loads on Dallas–Houston corridor grow more than 80% in 2026
- Waabi achieves zero-shot generalization across vehicle platforms for autonomous trucks
- Waabi achieves driverless closed-course milestone, plans public road testing
Background drawn from MotorClaw's earlier coverage of Waabi Innovation Inc.'s official releases.
Why this matters
This is the first customer operation in the Volvo-Waabi partnership and puts autonomous trucks into less-than-truckload freight, one of freight's most operationally complex segments. Carriers, shippers and freight networks such as Warp are affected directly, and Volvo says lessons from the Dallas–Houston lane will inform scaling.
Terms in This Story
- less-than-truckload (LTL)
- Freight shipping in which loads from multiple customers share one truck, so goods must be consolidated, hauled and distributed on coordinated schedules.
- full-truckload (FTL)
- Freight shipping in which a single customer's shipment fills the trailer and moves as one load.
- Autona / freight
- The name of Volvo Autonomous Solutions' autonomous transport ecosystem, which bundles a purpose-built vehicle, a virtual driver, infrastructure, operations and uptime support, and a cloud solution that controls the transport system and manages logistics flows.
- virtual driver
- The software system that performs the driving task in place of a human driver.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.