Autonomous trucking startup Bot Auto says it has completed what it describes as the first fully humanless over-the-road commercial truckload delivery in the U.S.

The Houston-based company moved a 231-mile (372 km) load from the Houston area to Hutchins, Texas, on April 29 without a safety driver, in-cab observer, or remote operator, according to a news release.

The overnight run was booked through broker partner Ryan Transportation and delivered on schedule, the company said. The route, along Interstate 45, took about four hours to complete, departing shortly after 1 a.m. and arriving before 5 a.m.

“This run was not a demonstration. It was a commercial delivery, executed on a customer’s timeline, for a customer’s freight, to a customer’s dock,” the company said in a release.

Bot Auto — founded in 2023, currently operating a fleet of 12 tractors, while serving more than 25 customers, running two commercial lanes — said its autonomous system includes multiple layers of redundancy and has been tested for years to meet federal, state and local regulatory and safety requirements.

It has also worked with law enforcement to develop procedures for interacting with driverless vehicles. The company plans to expand its Trucking-as-a-Service operating network while continuing to validate its technology in real-world freight movements.

“People told me autonomous trucking commercialization still had a long way to go. This load is my answer. We did not build a demonstration, we built a business: commercial freight, on public roads, with no human in the cab or remote driving, operating between third-party logistics hubs, and most importantly, making money on every mile,” said Xiaodi Hou, founder and CEO, Bot Auto, in the release. “That was my commercial vision for this revolutionary technology a decade ago. Now we intend to set that as the standard in America, with no asterisks and no caveats. Houston to Dallas is mile one.”