Uber and Aurora announce ‘long-term’ driverless truck deal after successful pilot

Uber’s freight hauling concern volition usage Aurora’s driverless trucks connected routes betwixt Dallas and Houston arsenic portion of a caller “long-term” woody that builds connected a three-year-old commercialized pilot.

Uber Freight volition beryllium 1 of Aurora’s archetypal customers connected the Texas way launching aboriginal this year. Launched successful 2017, Uber Freight connects motortruck drivers with shippers, overmuch successful the aforesaid mode the company’s ridehailing app pairs drivers with those looking for a ride.

Aurora, which was founded by erstwhile executives from Google, Uber, and Tesla, has said it plans to deploy 20 afloat autonomous trucks this year. When it does, those trucks volition beryllium hauling goods for Uber Freight customers.

The 2 companies are besides launching a programme called Premier Autonomy, which enables carriers an “early and streamlined” mode to entree the Aurora Driver, which is the branding utilized by the institution to picture its driverless technology. Aurora is offering its customers entree to its Aurora Driver tech through a subscription, alternatively than trying to ain and run its ain fleet of trucks.

Premier Autonomy members volition besides get “access to implicit 1 cardinal driverless miles done 2030” arsenic good arsenic “seamless integration” of the Aurora Driver into the Uber Freight platform. Aurora president Ossa Fisher said successful a connection that the programme volition springiness “hundreds” of carriers entree to driverless trucks that mightiness not different person it.

Of course, Uber and Aurora person galore ties. Drew Bagnell, erstwhile caput of Uber’s autonomy and cognition team, was 1 of the 3 co-founders of Aurora. The ridehailing institution had been processing its ain self-driving motortruck arsenic portion of its larger concern successful autonomous exertion but later was forced to off-load it to Aurora. Ballooning costs, positive the calamity successful Arizona erstwhile an Uber self-driving car struck and killed a pedestrian, forced Uber to propulsion the plug connected its AV project.

Previously, Uber Freight said it would work with Alphabet’s Waymo connected deploying driverless trucks, but the Google spinoff has since scaled back its trucking part and is present relying connected manufacturing partners like Daimler to spearhead its ambitions. Aurora is besides moving with respective different partners, including Volvo and Continental.

Aurora has avoided a batch of the antagonistic property of its robotaxi peers, mostly by staying beneath the radar. Still, the institution is struggling to close its finances. Aurora reported a nett nonaccomplishment of $165 cardinal successful the archetypal 4th of 2024, which is simply a 16 percent betterment implicit the aforesaid play the twelvemonth before.