Aurora’s autonomous truck delays the delivery of driverless cargo until April

PITTSBURGH – Autonomous truck company Aurora Innovation says it’s not launching cargo transportation without people on board by April of next year, which compares with earlier claims that commercial service would begin by the end of 2024.

The Pittsburgh-based company said Wednesday that the April launch of driverless semis that will travel from Dallas to Houston will be “somewhat later” than the company had planned.

The company told investors on a third-quarter earnings call that it has made progress in ensuring the safe operation of its trucks.

The disruptions that remain are “mainly in the areas of some of the traffic elements and some of the construction elements that we see on the freeway,” CEO Chris Urmson said. “As we move forward, we want to have extremely high confidence in the system.”

The company will start with about 10 autonomous tractor units and grow to “dozens” of trucks by the end of next year, Urmson said.

“This transition to our schedule will have little financial impact and will not impact our scaling efforts on our path to self-funding,” Urmson said.

Aurora also intends to carry cargo without human drivers from Fort Worth, Texas, to Phoenix later in 2025, Urmson said.

Aurora added nearly $500 million to its balance sheet in August thanks to a capital increase in August that the company expects to fund the initial stages of its strategy to expand into unmanned trucking.