PALMER, TEXAS — Aurora Innovation is increasing its commercial loads as it aims to go fully autonomous by the end of this year for its Dallas to Houston launch lane.
The Pittsburgh-based tech firm is now regularly scheduling over 120 loads per week, the company reported for its Q1 earnings, up from its Q4 update of over 100.
“In 2024, we’re aiming to double our loads per week through existing and incremental customer growth,” an investor presentation said earlier this year.
Aurora has been hauling loads for firms such as Schneider National, Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight, driving approximately 1.5 million commercial miles from Sept. 23, 2021 through April 30, according to the company.
To scale operations further, the company is ramping up the size of its fleet, Aurora President Ossa Fisher told Trucking Dive during a visit to the company’s terminal in Palmer.
“With the partners we already have in place, they have a lot of volume. They're asking us to add weekends and nights to the lanes that we already have,” Fisher said. “And we'll be adding more trucks to our fleet.”
The new scheduled work level is triple the commercial volume Aurora had a year ago. For the rest of this year, the business is focusing on finalizing contractual commitments through 2025 while increasing capacity strategically, the company said.
Simultaneously, the company is also working to justify the safety of its tech, and completing that safety case will allow the company to proceed with its launch lane. Closing that review was 95% finished as of mid-April, according to a weighted measure of its launch lane readiness, co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson said on a Q1 earnings call.
Currently, commercial runs include a pair of staff onboard trucks to monitor the technology and intervene if necessary. Along with a CDL driver who’s behind the wheel, a specialist in the passenger seat logs feedback of the trucks for engineers.
Aurora eventually will commercialize its operations as a digital subscription service on a per-mile basis.
In addition to partnerships with Volvo Trucks and Paccar, the tech firm has a long-term exclusive deal with Continental to jointly develop and manufacture Aurora hardware, a Q1 letter to investors said this month. Following testing through 2025, the auto parts supplier will create the hardware for production that’s slated to start in 2027.
