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PepsiCo Takes Hands Off the Wheel; New Life for Oldest U.S. Steel Plant By Mark R. Long | WSJ Logistics Report
PepsiCo is running 35 driverless trucks on Arizona roads, making it the first major U.S. consumer-goods company to disclose the real-life, large-scale use of autonomous trucks
on public roads.
The Wall Street Journal's Esther Fung writes that the trucks traverse busy highways and local streets transporting snacks and drinks between bottling plants, storage facilities and stores such as Walmart and Dollar General.
While at least nine autonomous-truck companies
operate in Southern and South-Central states, many still have human monitors at the wheel, or are only used in limited tests. PepsiCo, using trucks outfitted with sensors and other tech from Gatik, has taken the use of the vehicles a step beyond.
PepsiCo has been working directly with Gatik since 2022. They operated with a safety driver in each truck for a few years, and started driverless runs in June 2025. The trucks have had no accidents on public roads. PepsiCo has five more trucks on the road in Texas and one in Arkansas, and it is looking to expand their use for more short-haul trips to more locations.
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Manufacturing
Nippon Steel, which bought U.S. Steel last year, said it expects to spend $2 billion to $2.5 billion at Mon Valley Works near Pittsburgh over the next three years to replace the equipment that rolls steel. The Journal's Bob Tita writes that the investment is more than double Nippon Steel's original cost estimate
for the project.
Replacing the current 88-year-old hot-strip mill at Mon Valley will lead to more domestically produced steel. The work is expected to generate as many as 6,000 jobs and up to $1.7 billion in economic activity for Pennsylvania, company executives said. The new hot-strip line will produce higher-value sheet steel for auto bodies and for pipe used in pipelines. Construction on the project is expected to start later in 2026 and last about three years.
Number of the Day In Other News The Conference Board's Employment Trends Index, a U.S. labor-market gauge, fell to 107.01 in May
from an upwardly revised 107.88 in April. (WSJ) China's export growth surged to 19.4% in May
from a year earlier in dollar terms, up from 14.1% in April. (WSJ) Japan's real gross domestic product rose by an annualized 1.8% in the first quarter , slightly slower than initially estimated but still on a recovery track. (WSJ) Industrial production in Germany rose 0.4% on month , the first rise since November of last year. (WSJ) Amazon said it entered a multibillion-dollar agreement
with Corning to get optical fiber, cable and connectivity gear to support its growing data-center buildout. (WSJ) Campbell's said weak demand for snacks
pressured sales in the latest quarter. (WSJ) U.S. food-and-beverage ingredients maker Ingredion agreed to acquire
U.K. rival Tate & Lyle for $3.6 billion in cash. (WSJ) Nvidia is joining with South Korean technology companies to build large-scale AI infrastructure
in Asia. (WSJ) Yemen's Houthi militants declared a ban on Israeli maritime movements
in the Red Sea. (Bloomberg) Sens. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) urged the Trump administration to restore suspended port fees
on Chinese ships to help support the revival of U.S. shipbuilding. (gCaptain) South Korea's Hanwha Ocean plans to test humanoid robots in partnership with Aeirobot and 3-D AI company NdotLight at the shipbuilder's Geoje yard. (Splash247) ArcBest said the less-than-truckload carrier and its ABF Freight unit will raise rates by about 5.9%
starting June 22. (SupplyChainDive) Ohio revoked 1,200 foreign truckers' commercial driver licenses and stopped issuing nondomiciled CDLs. (Transport Topics) Orbis started producing bins
for AutoStore automated storage and retrieval systems at a facility in Texas, its second in North America. (DC Velocity) A total of five animals in the U.S. have been confirmed to be infested with New World screwworm , after three cases were confirmed in Texas on Monday. (Texas Tribune) About Us
Mark R. Long is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at [mark.long@wsj.com]. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team on LinkedIn: Mark R. Long , Liz Young and Paul Berger .
This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 09, 2026 07:02 ET (11:02 GMT)
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