PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Aurora Innovation Inc. is announcing the expansion of its commercial operations, including surpassing 20,000 driverless miles at the end of June, recently growing its driverless fleet to three trucks, beginning driverless commercial operations at night and opening its Phoenix terminal.
“Efficiency, uptime, and reliability are important for our customers, and Aurora is showing we can deliver,” said Chris Urmson, co-founder, CEO of Aurora. “Just three months after launch, we’re running driverless operations day and night and we’ve expanded our terminal network to Phoenix. Our rapid progress is beginning to unlock the full value of self-driving trucks for our customers, which has the potential to transform the trillion-dollar trucking industry.”
Day and Night Commercial Operations
Aurora has expanded driverless operations on the Dallas-to-Houston lane to now include nighttime driving. This capability more than doubles truck utilization potential, significantly shortening delivery times on long-haul routes and creating a path to profitability for autonomous trucking, according to a company press release.
“Autonomous trucks can also make roads safer,” Aurora said. “Due to low visibility and driver fatigue, a disproportionate 37% of fatal crashes involving large trucks occur at night. The Aurora Driver reliably sees and understands the world around it day and night without ever getting tired. Powered by Aurora’s proprietary, long-range FirstLight Lidar, the Aurora Driver can detect objects in the dark more than 450 meters away, identifying pedestrians, vehicles, and debris up to 11-seconds sooner than a traditional driver.”
Aurora Opens Phoenix Terminal
“Aurora’s new terminal in Phoenix opened in June and exemplifies an infrastructure-light approach that resembles how Aurora plans to integrate with future customer endpoints,” Aurora said. “This evolution optimizes for speed to market and enables Aurora’s plan to deliver freight directly to customer endpoints.”
Fort Worth to Phoenix is nearly half the distance of the busy Atlanta to Los Angeles freight corridor, taking more than 15 hours to complete. Self-driving trucks can halve transit times, especially on long routes that exceed the 11-hour driving limit for human drivers. Aurora is currently making autonomous hauls on this lane for Hirschbach and Werner.
“To further build on its commitment to industry-leading transparency, Aurora launched Aurora Driver Live, a publicly available livestream of its self-driving truck operations,” Aurora said. “The livestream demonstrates the safety, reliability, and growing maturity of the Aurora Driver, offering a first-of-its-kind glimpse into the future of freight transportation.”
