Luck Stone Expands Caterpillar Autonomous Hauling to Two More Quarries

Luck Stone and Caterpillar announced on September 14, 2026 that they are expanding autonomous hauling to two additional Luck Stone operations in Virginia, building on more than 18 months of autonomous operation at the company’s Bull Run Quarry, where driverless trucks have hauled more than 3.5 million tons of material since going live in November 2024.

According to Caterpillar’s announcement, the expansion will integrate the company’s autonomous hauling technology across two fleets of Cat 775 trucks at the Boscobel and Bealeton quarries. It marks the first time Caterpillar will deploy its autonomous haulage solution on the Cat 775, described in the release as a key haul truck model in the quarry industry. Caterpillar is delivering the expansion with support from local Cat dealer Carter Machinery, and the project includes complementary technologies that support loaders and other site equipment at the two operations.

The release states that the expansion is intended to enhance safety, consistency and new opportunities for associates. It identifies persistent challenges facing quarry and aggregates producers: maintaining consistent production across shifts, improving safety and attracting and developing talent in a competitive environment. Luck Stone’s stated position is that technology is most valuable when it helps associates while creating safer, more consistent operations.

“Autonomy is creating a safer workplace that improves consistency for our customers and gives our associates opportunities to develop new skills as our industry continues to evolve,” said Travis Chewning, Luck Stone vice president of engineering and operations support.

Denise Johnson, Caterpillar group president for Resource Industries, said the collaboration has produced insights that help Caterpillar refine and scale autonomous hauling solutions, and that the expansion demonstrates how customer collaborations accelerate innovation. Caterpillar reports that its autonomous trucks have collectively hauled more than 13 billion tonnes and safely traveled more than 455 million kilometers with no reported injuries while operating.

Collaboration Timeline

Luck Stone, the nation’s largest family-owned and operated producer of crushed stone, sand and gravel, began its formal autonomy work with Caterpillar in December 2022, when the two companies announced an agreement to accelerate development of Caterpillar’s autonomous solutions for quarry and aggregate applications.

On November 7, 2024, Caterpillar announced it had successfully demonstrated fully autonomous operation of its Cat 777 off-highway truck with MineStar Command for hauling at Luck Stone’s Bull Run plant in Chantilly, Virginia. The deployment was Caterpillar’s first use of autonomous technology in the aggregates industry and extended its autonomous truck lineup to the 100-ton-class (90-tonne-class) Cat 777. At the time, Caterpillar reported that autonomous trucks operating on three continents had traveled more than 325 million kilometers and moved more than 8.62 billion tonnes. The company had been embedded with Luck Stone for two years to build expertise in quarry operations, and the November 2024 release said the Bull Run success laid the foundation for ongoing testing and validation before autonomous technology would be made commercially available in the aggregates industry.

On July 14, 2025, the companies announced one million tons hauled autonomously at Bull Run, a first for Caterpillar in the aggregates industry. That release described Bull Run as the first aggregates site to deploy Caterpillar’s autonomous Cat 777 trucks, supported by a full autonomy technology stack and site integration services, and stated that the autonomous trucks had demonstrated improved cycle consistency and reduced idle time. The companies said at the time that they continued to explore expanding autonomy across additional sites and applications.

The Luck Stone expansion follows another quarry autonomy agreement in Caterpillar’s pipeline. On May 4, 2026, Caterpillar announced an agreement with Carmeuse to deploy Cat MineStar Command for hauling across a fleet of 777 trucks at the Carmeuse Drummond Island quarry in Drummond, Michigan, delivered by Caterpillar and supported by Fabick Cat alongside complementary MineStar capabilities for loaders and staff-supported equipment.

How Command for Hauling Works

Caterpillar’s product documentation states that Command for hauling provides fully integrated operation of autonomous systems, with trucks responding to calls to the shovel, moving into position, hauling to dump points and reporting for maintenance without an operator on board. Each person entering the autonomous operating zone carries an autonomous stop device, or A-stop, that enables immediate stoppage of all autonomous machines in the area.

The documentation states that trucks obey speed limits, queuing protocol and predetermined intersection priorities, and that staffed and autonomous machines can operate together under traffic management rules. The system uses high-precision GPS and is designed to operate at sites of any size, from quarries to the largest mines.