Humble secures $24 million to develop a truck without a cab that runs on electric power.

      The San Francisco startup, launched by a former engineer from Uber ATG and Waabi, is adopting a unique strategy for autonomous freight compared to Aurora and Kodiak: it features no driver's cab, avoids hub handoffs, and uses an autonomy stack based on vision-language-action models rather than traditional rule-based systems.

      Humble, the autonomous freight startup based in San Francisco, has emerged from stealth mode with a $24 million seed funding round and introduced a fully electric, cabless freight vehicle known as the Humble Hauler. The funding was led by Eclipse, a venture firm in Palo Alto that focuses on physical AI, with additional support from Energy Impact Partners.

      The company was established by Eyal Cohen, whose extensive two-decade background in autonomous vehicles includes tenures at Apple, Uber ATG, Waabi, and Spark AI, a startup he co-founded that was acquired by John Deere in 2023.

      The Hauler is purposefully designed without a driver’s cab. Cohen explained to Fortune, which reported the launch as an exclusive, that traditional trucks were not designed with autonomy in mind; their structure reflects a system centered around human operators. By eliminating the cab, the Hauler achieves 360-degree sensor coverage through cameras, LiDAR, and radar, increases payload capacity, and allows for a fundamentally different vehicle shape.

      The Hauler accommodates both 40-foot and 53-foot shipping containers, aligning with standard dimensions for intermodal freight, and operates on a dock-to-dock basis, delivering directly to the destination and unloading rather than simply dropping off a trailer at a transfer point. This dock-to-dock model represents a significant divergence in Humble's commercial strategy compared to the existing autonomous trucking sector.

      Aurora, which has developed a driverless truck network throughout the Sun Belt, utilizes a hub-to-hub model where autonomous trucks transfer control to human drivers at drop yards near city peripheries. Similarly, Kodiak's operations revolve around fixed launch-and-landing spots. Both models simplify the autonomy challenge by restricting the areas of operation. Humble's hypothesis is that directly reaching the customer is essential for logistics operators, and that the Hauler's design—alongside an autonomy stack derived from vision-language-action models instead of typical rule-based systems—can achieve this more efficiently than models limited by cab-forward configurations.

      Jiten Behl, a partner at Eclipse who joined the firm in early 2024 after his roles as chief strategy officer and chief growth officer at Rivian, is the investor most aligned with Humble's vision. He emphasizes the commercial appeal in terms logistics operators cannot dismiss: “When you present them with the prospect of 30 to 50% greater efficiency in their operations, it’s a necessity to bring it to their management team.”

      Regarding the capital needed to scale, Behl adopts a notably conservative stance for a sector that has seen billions in investment: “This won’t require a billion dollars. It will need significantly less than that.”

      The market landscape lends credence to both their aspirations and prudent approach. The U.S. truck freight market is valued at $906 billion, with the autonomous freight sector expected to reach $575.7 million by 2026 and projected to grow to $3.25 billion by 2035.

      Federal support is also coming into play: the Self Drive Act of 2026, introduced in February, aims to establish a consolidated federal framework for autonomous trucking, and Cohen recently met with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington just last week. Humble has been collaborating with NHTSA since the early stages of its development.

      What remains undisclosed for now is Humble's commercial timeline, specific pilot partners, or targeted areas for initial operations. The seed funding will support the development of the Hauler and the launch of a pilot program. The ultimate question is whether the company can convert its architectural advantages and capable founding team into operational success before the opportunity closes, especially as Aurora has already logged over 250,000 driverless miles without any at-fault accidents and aims to have 200 autonomous trucks operational by year’s end. The $24 million investment is intended to help address that question.