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While the tech world obsesses over Tesla’s robotaxi rollout, PepsiCo has been doing something arguably more impressive with far less fanfare: actually putting driverless vehicles to work at scale.
The food and beverage giant now operates 41 fully driverless trucks across public roads in Arizona, Texas, and Arkansas, making it the largest commercial autonomous freight operation in the United States. The fleet has recorded zero accidents and a 99% on-time delivery rate since fully driverless operations began in June 2025. For context, Tesla’s unsupervised robotaxi fleet is estimated at somewhere between 20 and 38 active vehicles as of mid-2026. The company that sells Doritos is outpacing the company that promised to revolutionize transportation.
How PepsiCo built the biggest driverless truck fleet in America
PepsiCo partnered with Gatik, an autonomous logistics firm, back in 2022. The initial phase ran pilot programs with safety drivers in the cab from 2022 through 2025, essentially training the system under real-world conditions before removing the human element entirely.
The transition to fully driverless operations kicked off in June 2025. Since then, the fleet has expanded to 41 trucks: 35 in Arizona, 5 in Texas, and 1 in Arkansas. The vehicles themselves are Isuzu box trucks equipped with Gatik’s suite of advanced sensors and cameras. These trucks handle short-haul deliveries, ferrying products like Doritos and beverages to major retailers including Walmart and Dollar General.
In June 2026, PepsiCo doubled down by announcing a multi-year agreement with Gatik to expand the operation further. The company has reportedly invested $600 million into its autonomous vehicle efforts.
The Tesla comparison is unavoidable
Tesla’s unsupervised robotaxi fleet currently sits at an estimated 20 to 38 active vehicles, and there are ongoing concerns about the program’s ability to scale. Meanwhile, PepsiCo, a company whose core business is selling chips and soda, has quietly surpassed Tesla’s fleet size in the autonomous vehicle space.
The comparison isn’t entirely apples-to-apples. Tesla is tackling urban passenger transport with all its chaotic complexity: pedestrians, cyclists, unpredictable intersections, road construction. PepsiCo’s trucks run fixed, predictable routes between warehouses and retail locations. PepsiCo identified a use case where autonomous technology could deliver measurable business value right now. The fact that a CPG company became the first major US consumer-goods firm to operate autonomous trucks at this scale says something uncomfortable about the pace of innovation at companies whose entire identity revolves around vehicles.
What this means for investors
The $600 million PepsiCo has reportedly poured into autonomous operations isn’t pocket change, even for a company of its size. A 99% on-time delivery rate and zero accidents translate directly into lower insurance costs, fewer liability claims, and more predictable logistics.
The Teamsters union has already raised labor concerns as fleets expand. The trucking industry employs roughly 3.5 million drivers in the US, and every successful driverless deployment adds pressure to that workforce.
Gatik, the relatively low-profile partner powering this operation, has delivered more commercially viable autonomous driving than companies with market caps ten times its size. As PepsiCo expands under its new multi-year agreement, the real question becomes which other major corporations follow its playbook, and how quickly the economics of driverless freight force the rest of the industry to adapt.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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