Aurora says it will ‘triple’ its driverless truck network

Aurora, the driverless truck firm founded by former members of Google’s pioneering self-driving car team, is branching out. In advance of its quarterly earnings report today, the company announced that a new software update would enable it to triple its driverless network to a total of 10 routes across the Southern US. Currently, Aurora has 10 autonomous trucks without safety monitors driving routes between Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, and El Paso. The company has issued three previous software updates: the first to authorize driverless trips between Dallas and Houston; the second to authorize driving at night; and the third to expand its network to include routes to El Paso. With this new update, Aurora will begin operating trips between Fort Worth and Phoenix, which takes more than 15 hours to complete. Legally, human truck drivers are restricted to 11 hours of driving a day, within a 14-hour duty limit, before they are required to take a break. An autonomous truck is not subject to these same restrictions. Additional routes include: Dallas and Houston; Fort Worth and El Paso; El Paso and Phoenix; Fort Worth and Phoenix; and Dallas and Laredo. The company is also using AI to build new maps for its autonomous driving system, with the goal of shortening the time between testing, validation, and commercial operation. According to Aurora: > After a single manual drive, cloud-based algorithms are able to generate semantic components, which helps to build new maps with little to no human assistance. Map automation significantly reduces the time to map new routes, positioning Aurora to accelerate the rollout of new routes and customer endpoints this year. Aurora is still operating trucks with safety monitors for several of its clients, including Hirschbach Motor Lines, Detmar Logistics, and “one of the leading carriers in the US from its Phoenix facility.” Aurora CEO Chris Urmson said previously that the company complies with requests from partners to keep safety drivers in the cab as a matter of optics, not an indicator of technological regression. Operationally, it has no bearing on Aurora’s progress. The company is also adding a new semi truck model to its fleet, based on the International LT, along with its new hardware suite which costs half the current stack. Aurora says it will launch the new truck without a safety monitor in the second quarter of 2026. And the company expects to have 200 driverless trucks in operation by the end of the year. Lastly, Aurora said its cash position has improved. Previously, Urmson said that Aurora had roughly $1.6 billion in the bank, enough to last until the second half of 2027. Now, the company says it expects to achieve positive free cash flow by 2028, indicating that Aurora will be generating more money from its business operations than it is loses.