Aurora Innovation, a company that makes technology for self-driving cars, wants to put its self-driving trucks on the market in April 2025
This is about a quarter later than its original plan. The business had planned to start up by the end of 2024. The company said it pushed back the launch to keep testing its self-driving technology.
In his third-quarter earnings shareholder letter, Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora, wrote, “While this is a little later than we had planned, this timing remains within the margin of error we have anticipated and communicated throughout 2024.” “Since we plan to release the Aurora Driver in stages—crawl, walk, run—this change in our schedule won’t have a big effect on our budget.”
Aurora will start as a carrier, but its long-term goal is to move toward a driver-as-a-service model. In this model, carriers buy cars with Aurora Driver technology built-in and then offer their services to shippers through those trucks.
Aurora checks the performance and readiness for business use of its Aurora Driver by providing on-site help, which the company says will cost the most. The Aurora Driver was bringing commercial loads 80% of the time without help from a remote person by the end of the third quarter. This is 75% more than in the second quarter. By the spring, when it goes on sale, the goal is to have reached 90%.
The company plans to use up to 10 robotic trucks when it first goes into business. By the end of 2025, they want to have tens of trucks in use.
Aurora has been testing business loads with FedEx, Werner, Schneider, Hirschbach, Uber Freight, and other pilot customers. Aurora says the number of business loads scheduled each week doubled last year. In the year ending October 27, 2024, Aurora’s trucks had driven over 2.2 million commercial miles and carried over 8,200 loads without a person in charge.
Aurora is a pre-revenue company that is making groundbreaking technology. In the third quarter, the company had operating costs of $196 million, which included $35 million in stock-based pay. That’s less than the $212 million it spent during the same time last year. Aurora says it is determined to be frugal on its way to marketing.
At the end of the quarter, the startup had $1.4 billion in cash and investments. This was after raising almost $500 million in August, which should give Aurora enough time to grow and become self-sufficient until 2026.