Autonomous Trucking & Delivery

DoorDash announced a slate of new products at its Dash Forward 2026 event, including text-based ordering, a custom drone delivery system called DoorDash Air, a restaurant growth platform called DashOS, and new AI tools for its delivery workers. U.S. consumers on iOS can join a waitlist starting today to try ordering by text in beta, an extension of the company's in-app Ask DoorDash assistant. DoorDash Air will pilot first in Northern California with partners including Chipotle and Popeyes, and the company says about 80% of today's typical DoorDash restaurant orders are light and small enough for the aircraft to carry safely, with initial tests showing delivery times from restaurant to customer door averaging under 5 minutes. The company is also bringing brands including Macy's, Anthropologie, The North Face, Vans and Timberland to its marketplace, and said Dasher Returns, which charges consumers a flat $7.99 fee per eligible return, is live in select cities and expected to roll out nationwide in November. DashOS connects DoorDash's tools across Marketplace, direct ordering, reservations, loyalty, guest management and marketing, while the new DashBuddy assistant has already been used by over 200,000 Dashers and has resolved about 95% of questions from Dashers signing up or preparing for their first dash. DoorDash also introduced a connector for corporate ordering built on the Model Context Protocol, with companies able to join the beta waitlist starting September 30.

Amazon.com Inc. has raised its 2026 capital-spending forecast to about $220 billion, driven largely by investments in artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure, and recently announced plans to extend over $100 million to establish an advanced manufacturing site in Indiana. The company plans to roll out more than 20,000 AI Smart Delivery Glasses by the end of 2027 and to deploy two million additional GPUs in collaboration with NVIDIA, including Blackwell Ultra, Rubin, and Rubin Ultra GPUs launching during 2027 and 2028, after planning around one million GPUs in 2026. In the second quarter of 2026, Amazon delivered $200.6 billion in total revenues, a 20% increase from the same period last year. Its £4.25 billion pound-denominated bond offering highlights its growing use of debt markets, as major cloud providers have collectively sold close to $220 billion in debt over the last twelve months. Institutional sentiment remains strong, with 369 hedge funds holding positions by the end of Q2 2026 versus 353 in Q1 2026, and short interest at 0.85%.

Amazon has begun deploying Netradyne surround-view cameras on its electric delivery vans and is boosting driver pay by $1 to support recruiting and retention, the company said this week. By the end of the year, the 360-degree camera technology will be installed in 50% of Rivian electric delivery vehicles across Amazon's network, according to Beryl Tomay, vice president of transportation. Amazon has invested more than $543 million in safety initiatives, programs and technology for independent business owners that operate delivery fleets for Amazon, and those investments, combined with contractor safety efforts, helped reduce serious vehicle crashes by more than 23% last year. The Delivery Service Program also received a $1.9 billion injection of funds that will be dispensed to owner-operators to increase driver pay by an average of 16% nationwide, with national average earnings rising by about $1 to nearly $24 per hour. Amazon said it expects to have more than 20,000 AI-powered smart glasses devices in the field by the end of 2027, and has installed simulators at 30 Integrated Last Mile Driver Academy locations since last year, on track to reach 40 simulators by the end of the year.

Textron Aviation, a unit of Textron, and autonomous flight software company Merlin introduced a pilotless cargo plane concept called the Cessna SkyCourier UX on September 14, pairing an FAA-certified twin-engine turboprop with Merlin's autonomy software. The concept is designed to keep dispersed military forces supplied when normal supply routes become too risky, carrying roughly 6,000 pounds, or up to three LD3 cargo containers, and landing on unimproved strips. Merlin CEO Matt George says the company's software has logged hundreds of autonomous flights across Beechcraft King Airs, Cessna Caravans and other planes, and because the base aircraft is already certified and in production, Textron would lean on an existing factory and support network. Nothing in the announcement points to a customer, an order, or a delivery date, and the companies describe the SkyCourier UX as an exploration. The concept arrives alongside mixed results for Textron Aviation, whose second-quarter revenue rose just 1% while jet deliveries fell to 40 from 49 and segment profit slipped 3% to $165 million, even as companywide revenue rose 3% to $3.8 billion and adjusted earnings of $1.62 per share topped the $1.55 posted a year earlier.

Caterpillar announced on September 15 that its self-driving haul trucks at a Luck Stone quarry are moving large tonnage, with expansion to two more Virginia quarries, Boscobel and Bealeton, including the first autonomous deployment of Cat 775 trucks. The company disclosed no order value, truck count, or profit contribution from the autonomy milestone, and autonomy was named on the earnings call only as a source of higher SG&A and R&D expenses inside Resource Industries. In the second quarter of 2026, revenue reached $20.5 billion, up 24% year over year, with adjusted EPS of $8.17, up 73%, while backlog climbed to $72 billion, up roughly $35 billion versus a year earlier. Power & Energy is the engine, with segment sales up 17% to $8.2 billion and power generation sales up 72% on large gensets and turbines for data centers, and gas prime orders extend toward the back half of 2028 and into 2029. Caterpillar trades at $798.51 against a consensus analyst target of $975.61, a trailing PE of 34x, and full-year tariff costs of around $2.2 billion for 2026, with expected IEEPA tariff recoveries of approximately $400 million.

After market close on September 17, Fulongma announced plans to sign a contract related to autonomous sanitation driving technology development and to cooperate with Huawei Cloud Computing Technologies on developing autonomous sanitation driving technology. The cooperation is an exclusive strategic partnership between the two sides in the field of intelligent sanitation, with a total contract value of 200 million yuan including tax. According to the announcement, the two sides have planned agreed three-ton and six-ton vehicle platforms, sweeping and washing business scenarios, and other elements. Huawei Cloud will conduct technical research on vehicle intelligent upgrades, drive-by-wire optimization, and cloud adaptation, and will exclusively develop and deploy the Fulongma Sanitation Autonomous Driving System for Fulongma, including cloud-based, vehicle-side software, and vehicle-side intelligent hardware solutions. Huawei Cloud will lead the adaptation and verification of autonomous driving algorithm software for three vehicle platforms in sweeping and washing scenarios. This is not the first time the two sides have joined forces. On December 11, 2025, Fulongma and Huawei signed a framework cooperation agreement, and on September 12 the two sides further signed a strategic cooperation agreement on embodied intelligence in the sanitation robot field. In the first half of 2026, Fulongma achieved revenue of 2.608 billion yuan, up 7.63 percent year on year, and net profit attributable to the parent company of 101 million yuan, up 7.27 percent year on year. Sanitation equipment business revenue was 808 million yuan, up 61.15 percent year on year, and sales of new energy sanitation equipment reached 938 units, up 81.43 percent year on year, accounting for 38.70 percent of total sales.

Karin Rådström is steering Daimler Truck, the world's largest commercial-vehicle manufacturer, through a cultural and strategic overhaul as Chinese competition looms over the European truck market. Since becoming CEO in 2024, Daimler Truck's share price has risen almost 40%, from €33.15 to €46.24, and zero-emissions vehicle sales climbed 67% in 2025, though group net profits fell 48% year-on-year in the second quarter despite a 5% revenue uplift, hit primarily by tariffs. Chinese companies currently hold just 1.36% of the European commercial-vehicle market, according to Dataforce, but SuperPanther and Sinotruk have begun production in Austria and Windrose has set up a European headquarters in Antwerp, while Windrose's Global E700 offers a 700 km fully loaded range against 500 km for Daimler Truck's flagship model. Defense is a key growth pillar: Daimler Truck aims to double defense-related revenues to €1 billion, or $1.17 billion, by 2028, a figure that would still represent only 2% of overall annual revenue, and it plans to invest mid-three-digit-million euros in its new Daimler Truck Defence brand while targeting Level 4 autonomous trucks for the U.S. market by 2027. Rådström, only the second woman to lead a DAX 40 company, has pushed a "simpler, faster, and stronger" operating mantra to cut bureaucracy, a shift Citi analyst Klas Bergelind says has decentralized the organization even as cultural change takes time.

Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien is publicly threatening a strike against United Parcel Service when the current five-year contract covering 330,000 unionized drivers and warehouse workers expires on July 31, 2028, saying he is not optimistic about reaching a tentative agreement without a walkout. O'Brien laid out the union's demands on a series of self-produced Teamsters podcasts, including no automation or autonomous trucks, protection of health and pension benefits, organizing UPS Supply Chain Solutions and the Roadie gig-delivery subsidiary, and a new right for all four union regions to strike mid-contract over deadlocked grievances. UPS spokeswoman Gennevieve Bowman said the current agreement remains in place through July 31, 2028, and that the company remains committed to working with the Teamsters, pointing to top driver pay of $45.75 an hour and no-premium healthcare as evidence the contract is good for employees. The 2023 agreement, which the union valued at $30 billion, included a $2.75-an-hour first-year wage increase, raised part-time starting pay to $21 an hour, and ended a two-tier driver wage system. UPS reported $88.7 billion in revenue last year and spent $1 billion on stock buybacks in 2025, while parcel analyst Satish Jindel of ShipMatrix argued a strike would let UPS hire replacement drivers at much lower cost and break the union. The last national UPS strike, in 1997, shut the company down for 15 days and cost more than $600 million in lost business.

Citizens analyst Andrew Boone reiterated a Market Perform rating on Tesla and Market Outperform on Uber Technologies Inc with a $100 price target, following news that Nevada regulators granted robotaxi permits to Tesla, Uber subsidiary Aviari Services, and Waymo. The Nevada Transportation Authority authorized each company to operate as an Autonomous Vehicle Network Company in Clark County, with Tesla permitted up to 5,000 fully autonomous vehicles in the first year, while Waymo and Uber are each capped at 1,000. Uber also launched its first European autonomous robotaxi service in Zagreb, using Pony.ai's technology and Verne's fleet, though it still requires a safety operator. Boone noted that Uber's partners are progressing, supporting expectations of a material ramp in autonomous supply in late 2026 and 2027, while Tesla's 5,000-vehicle approval is a ceiling, not a forecast, with the company anticipating around 2,500 vehicles this year.