Houston autonomous vehicle company plans to have no drivers on Texas Highways.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports a Houston autonomous vehicle company plans to have no drivers in their self-driving trucks, making it one of the many businesses bringing the large, driverless vehicles to Texas highways. Bot Auto completed fully autonomous testing between Houston and San Antonio since last fall. The company plans to launch fully driverless operations for an initial four months. Bart Teeter, director of fleet and operational safety with Bot Auto, presented the company’s technology and trucks to local transportation and law enforcement agencies on Thursday at the Houston TranStar building. “One of the things that we’re very proud of is we’re a later entry into the market, and so we’ve been able to leverage the advances in A.I. that some of the companies that started before us didn’t have,” he said.

Teeter, who formerly worked at the Texas Highway Patrol, said safety is one of the reasons he advocates for these vehicles on Texas highways. Texas led the nation in fatal large truck crashes between 2018 and 2022, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Teeter believes that using these smart trucks to carry freight could help prevent further crashes caused by humans. “We like to brag, right? We’re Texans. Things are bigger in Texas. Well, the one thing I never really wanted to brag about was how big our crash problem is,” he said. Bot Auto spokesperson Jeremy Desel said the Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment — documents encouraged by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for companies that develop and launch automated driving systems — will be released in the next couple of weeks. Teeter said the trucks will operate fully autonomously, without a driver, by the end of summer. It will not haul hazardous materials. Bot Auto was founded in 2023. It operates a fleet of driverless trucks and partners with other businesses to provide autonomous freight transportation.