A Fresh Approach to Autonomous Trucking

Humble isn’t another driverless truck — it isn’t a truck at all. It’s a cabless, fully electric hauling platform purpose-built for the cost-effective transportation of goods. Built to adapt to different cargo types and logistics environments like warehouses, railyards, and seaports, the Humble Hauler is a Class 8 vehicle that can unload directly at the dock. Cameras, lidar, and radar afford the hauler with 360-degree visibility of its surroundings while vision-language-action (VLA) models enable it to assess any environment and take the right action, even if it's never been there before.

Along with the ability to universally provide efficient, tireless service across a range of cargo environments, the Hauler platform is significantly lighter and cheaper to produce than traditional Class 8 vehicles. Its electric powertrain removes the massive cost consideration of volatile fuel prices, while its stripped-down, cabless architecture is far simpler to maintain.

It thinks like a human, hauls like a truck, but operates in a way that fundamentally changes the way we move freight from one point to another. The results are a dramatic reduction in freight operating costs.

Eyal has assembled an incredible team with deep experience in physical AI, automotive, and electrification from companies including Tesla, Waymo, and Cruise. This includes Humble Head of Autonomy Drew Gray, who led Autopilot at Tesla in its earliest days, scaled engineering at Cruise, and helped build autonomy programs across Otto, Uber, and Voyage (if you’ve been in this space long enough, you’ve probably seen Drew’s work in one form or another). In just six months, they’ve built their first prototype, and Humble will soon begin testing the Humble Hauler with logistics and supply chain partners. 

We see tremendous opportunity in this approach. Rather than tasking the vehicle with transporting goods hundreds of miles across open freeways, Humble is beginning with shorter but more complex (and higher frequency) routes between cargo points. This strategy clearly demonstrates the team’s recognition of where autonomy can deliver value quickly.

This method of getting to market has resonated across the industry. Customers are responding to the idea that a Humble Hauler can deliver real value to their operations today, from reducing operational costs to increased payloads. Regulators have appreciated the ground-up vehicle design that addresses their priorities ranging from cargo security to full rear visibility. These learnings come from the deep industry experience the Humble team brings to the table.

Humble’s decision to build a vertically-integrated business based on a universal platform (which more closely resembles Rivian skateboard technology than any other AV freight product) isn’t an unnecessarily risky “flex.” It’s a requirement if you want the economics to work. This isn’t a first pass at a problem. It’s a more informed one.

This is the kind of wisdom that has created a wave of physical AI companies that are finally getting somewhere after years of incremental progress in the field writ large. For the past decade, we’ve seen countless robotics startups that have built amazing prototypes with intentions to solve a clearly defined problem, but they couldn’t get off the ground for one reason or another — the tech was too early, the market wasn’t ready, the talent or capital wasn’t there, or they took the wrong GTM approach. But now, there is a cohort of seasoned robotics operators and repeat founders like Eyal who are building new systems with autonomy at the core. They are building with a solid understanding of the economics of the business and tight integration across hardware, software, and operations. This provides a clear path to capturing value.

Across our portfolio, this shift is clear. Mytra was founded by former Tesla engineers who were working on humanoids before they focused on the foundational problem of material flow in industrial environments. Constraining the problem to its fundamentals enabled them to develop a system, in partnership with customers, that actually works. Bedrock is built by roboticists who’ve lived through full autonomy cycles, both as repeat startup founders as well as their time at Waymo, and seen what does and doesn’t scale. Blue Water Autonomy founder Rylan Hamilton’s path from Kiva to 6 River Systems reflects the same pattern: Early models that required significant adjustment, followed by ones aligned with how the industries for which they are building deploy and monetize new tech. 

These are second passes, built by people who understand how system design, market structure, and economics interact. In freight, the conclusion is straightforward: Autonomy doesn’t work as an add-on. It works when the system is built around it.

At Eclipse, we are drawn to founding teams who take a clean-sheet, first-principles approach to solving old problems in new ways. Humble is a team that knows how to execute, and has a strategy that aligns technology with economics — not just capability with curiosity.

That combination is rare. We’re thrilled to partner with Eyal, Drew, and the Humble team as they reinvent the wheels moving freight.

More on today’s news from Fortune.

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