How Aurora is navigating the bumpy road to commercial selfdriving trucks

News Summary

  • The company will host its first customer summit at the end of April in Dallas — an event that will bring together its pilot customers and partners to discuss the next steps toward commercial launch, according to the company.However, another raise is still in the plans.
  • That commercial launch, Urmson says, is still on target for next year, and those cost-cutting measures have ensured Aurora will have enough cash to get the company through the middle of 2024.Aurora is now focused on converting all of those pilot programs into long-term customers.
  • “This is a standard filing that provides Aurora the flexibility to raise at a future date but is not a signal we intend to imminently fundraise.”In the meantime, Urmson said he is focused on de-risking the business.“We’re going to wait for the right time and the right partners.
  • )“I think one of the really important early decisions we made as a company was to be independent,” Urmson said, referencing Argo AI’s funding by Ford and Volkswagen.
  • The Aurora Driver’s behavior in construction zones also derives from ATG algorithms.All of this is included in the Aurora Driver Beta 6.0 release, which “introduced the final driving capabilities needed to commercially haul freight without vehicle operators,” according to Aurora.
  • To date, the company’s trucks have traveled more than 400,000 miles and hauled 20 million pounds of freight for FedEx, Uber Freight, Werner and Schneider.Screenshot of Aurora trucking route as of April 2023.
Amid economic uncertainty, tight capital markets, wary investors and consolidation in the nascent autonomous vehicle industry, Aurora Innovation is still motoring on towards its target of commerciali [+10496 chars]