Two PlusAI trailers were stolen overnight from the company’s warehouse in Fremont, California, on Sept. 24. One of the trailers carried both PlusAI and NVIDIA branding.
The thieves broke the hand locks securing the trailers before pulling them away from their docks. But instead of finding valuable autonomous-driving technology, they found 40,000 pounds of sand.
PlusAI noticed the trailers were missing the following morning. The company’s vehicle operations team immediately notified police and filed the necessary insurance reports. Employees also contacted neighboring facilities in an effort to obtain surveillance footage that might help determine where the trailers had gone.
Fremont Police received the stolen vehicle report at about 9:34 a.m.
The sand was not being transported as ordinary cargo. PlusAI uses simulated loads during manual testing of its trucks, using consistent weight to help engineers assess vehicle handling, braking performance and other driving dynamics under conditions that more closely replicate real freight operations.
An unexpected message leads to the recovery
The investigation took an unusual turn later that afternoon.
A friend of PlusAI’s vice president of legal happened to spot both trailers outside her office in Newark, only minutes from the company’s Fremont warehouse. Believing PlusAI had moved the equipment there for a display, she took a photograph and sent it to the executive along with a congratulatory text message.
The photograph immediately raised attention inside PlusAI.
The company dispatched its vehicle operations team to the location and contacted authorities. Employees quickly confirmed that the trailers were the same units reported stolen earlier that day.
“The trailers were actually located through a remarkable coincidence,” Lauren Kwan, PlusAI’s vice president of marketing, told FreightWaves.
Newark Police responded to the 39000 block of Eureka Drive that afternoon. Officers recovered both trailers and returned them to PlusAI. All 40,000 pounds of sand were still inside.
“Police told us it appeared the thieves had broken open the back of the trailers,” Kwan told FreightWaves. She said authorities found nothing valuable inside before the equipment was abandoned.
The recovery effectively ended the search within hours, but the central question remains unanswered: why were the trailers targeted in the first place?
The NVIDIA branding adds another question
One of the stolen trailers prominently displayed joint PlusAI and NVIDIA branding, reflecting the companies’ long-standing collaboration on AI software and autonomous trucks.
“One of them displayed joint PlusAI and NVIDIA branding,” Kwan told FreightWaves, explaining that the markings represented the companies’ ongoing work together.
That branding naturally raises the possibility that the thieves may have believed the trailers contained valuable technology. Still, Fremont Police has not publicly established a motive, and there
