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PALMER, TEXAS — Aurora Innovation is ramping up its commercial payloads as it aims to become fully autonomous by the end of this year for its Dallas-to-Houston launch pad.
The Pittsburgh-based tech company now plans regularly over 120 loads weekly, the company reported its Q1 earnings, up from its Q4 update over 100.
“In 2024, we aim to double our loads per week through existing and incremental customer growth.” investor presentation he said earlier this year.
Aurora hauls cargo for companies including Schneider National, Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight, covering about 1.5 million commercial miles from Sept. 23, 2021, to April 30, according to the company.
To further scale operations, the company is increasing 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, they have a lot of volume. They’re asking us to add weekends and nights to the lanes we already have,” Fisher said. “And we will be adding more trucks to our fleet.”
The new planned work level is three times the trading volume Aurora had a year ago. For the remainder of this year, the business is focused on completing contractual commitments through 2025, while also increasing capacity strategically, the company said.
At the same time, the company is also working to justify the safety of its technology, and the completion of this safety case will allow the company to move onto the launch pad. The closure of that assessment was 95 percent complete as of mid-April, according to a weighted measure of launch-strip readiness, co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson said in a Q1 earnings call.
Currently, commercial routes include a pair of staff on the trucks to monitor the technology and intervene if necessary. Along with a CDL driver behind the wheel, an expert in the passenger seat records truck feedback for mechanics.
Aurora will eventually commercialize its business as a digital per-mile subscription service.
In addition to partnerships with Volvo Trucks and Paccar, the technology company has a long-term exclusive agreement with Continental to jointly develop and manufacture Aurora hardware, according to a first-quarter letter to investors this month. After testing through 2025, the auto parts supplier will build the hardware for production scheduled to begin in 2027.