The Next Frontier For Autonomous Vehicles is Burying Your Garbage - WSJ

The Next Frontier for Autonomous Vehicles is Burying Your Garbage - WSJ

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The Next Frontier for Autonomous Vehicles is Burying Your Garbage

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-next-frontier-for-autonomous-vehicles-is-burying-your-garbage-2955e3bc

1. Business

The Next Frontier for Autonomous Vehicles is Burying Your Garbage

Caterpillar’s newest landfill machinery doesn’t need a human in the operator’s cab

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*Abrin Vasquez remotely pilots a Caterpillar dozer spreading trash across an Arizona landfill.*

By

Bob Tita

|

Photography and video by Johnny Kompar for WSJ

Sept. 19, 2026 2:11 pm ET

Inside a cool, dimly lighted trailer where the quiet is broken mostly by the crackle of radio traffic, Abrin Vasquez drives a 40-ton bulldozer hundreds of yards away.

Vasquez is remotely piloting a CaterpillarCAT 1.30% increase; up pointing triangle

dozer spreading trash across the Marana Regional Landfill near Tucson, Ariz. He used to be out in the heat running the machine from the cab, a potentially dangerous job in the landfill’s rough, trash-filled terrain. Now, he is safely away from that in the control trailer, doing the same job from a virtual cab.

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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