Autonomous vehicle technology company Aurora Innovation plans to expand on the success of its first driverless commercial launch and add night driving to its operations.
Aurora said Thursday in the second half of 2025 it will start sending its self-driving trucks out at night and during adverse weather conditions like rain or heavy wind. The company, which provided the update in its first-quarter shareholder letter, also plans to expand its driverless trucking route beyond Dallas to Houston, and into El Paso and Phoenix.
“We’d like to have a high return on asset for every truck that we have, and so we’ll try to drive efficiency to get as many miles on as many trucks as fast as possible,” Aurora CFO Dave Maday said Thursday during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. “We should be able to double our drive time as soon as we unlock night. And that’s our next key milestone.”
Aurora already runs freight with self-driving trucks in those conditions, but with a human safety operator behind the wheel. The company said it has completed more than 4,000 miles in a single self-driving truck without a driver running freight for its launch customers Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight.
In the week since Aurora’s commercial launch, the company has already expanded to two driverless trucks operating on a daily basis, and says it expects to operate “tens of trucks” by the end of 2025.
The milestone, and future plans come alongside another major shift at the company: the resignation of co-founder and chief product officer Sterling Anderson.
Aurora shared new details Thursday in its first-quarter shareholder letter about plans to grow its autonomous freight serv …