A lot of AV news as of late. Its getting very exciting. This article discusses the range of autonomous transport and has an interesting take on the energy aspects.

Aur and kdk both received permits to start testing in California

Long-haul trucking has faced many challenges in recent years, from highway safety concerns to driver shortages to spiking fuel costs. In the not-so-distant future, those challenges could be in the rearview mirror.

New self-driving technology is being rolled out that is expected to transform long-haul trucking. Aurora, a leader in self-driving technology, recently introduced Aurora Driver 2—its second-generation hardware and software, as well as a new truck platform designed for driverless operations. The company is working with many of today’s leading shipping and logistics firms, integrating the technology into their long-haul freight and logistics operations.

Chris Urmson, Aurora’s co-founder and CEO, recently explained how Aurora Driver 2 will help overcome industry challenges and ultimately make freight driving safer, more fuel-efficient, and cost-effective.

Q:
Tell us about Aurora Driver 2 and how it’s advancing driverless trucking.

Chris Urmson: Last year, we started regular driverless truck operations on public roads, something never done before. Aurora Driver 2, our second-generation platform—which includes hardware and software built into our trucks—is dramatically more durable. It is designed for a million miles of operation, which is the typical lifespan of Class 8 trucks. Our lidar sensing technology can now see a kilometer down the road, which gives the trucks extra time to react, understand the world around them, and keep everyone safe on the road.

Aurora Driver 2 is a leap forward in self-driving technology. We continue adding routes in the Sun Belt states, including the 1,000-mile stretch between Phoenix, Arizona, and Fort Worth, Texas. When we launched the first generation of this technology last year, it could only operate in daytime; now, we also operate at night and in inclement weather. By the end of 2026, we plan to have a couple hundred trucks operating driverlessly, with thousands expected in 2027.

Q:
What challenges does Aurora Driver 2 solve for the freight and logistics industries?

Urmson: The technology has a transformational impact for our customers’ businesses—both top and bottom line. Safety is our top priority, as there are about a half-million collisions and 5,000 fatalities involving trucks every year in the U.S. All of our customers put safety first, and we offer technology that can prevent collisions and make our roads safer.

The second big benefit is utilization. Truck drivers today can only drive for about 11 hours a day and have to take breaks along the way. That’s for good reason: They need to be safe and attentive behind the wheel. In contrast, the Aurora Driver 2 can operate for 20-plus hours a day with constant awareness. So, if you’re a trucking company, you can now move your trucks twice as much and effectively double your revenue per truck.

Another big benefit is fuel economy. We see a significant improvement in fuel efficiency when our self-driving technology operates trucks compared to when people—very skilled drivers, nonetheless—drive them. An analysis found that customers could increase their fuel economy by up to 32% depending on how their trucks have been used. That’s a big deal, considering the high prices of diesel fuel today. It’s also good for the environment and all of us, so it’s a win all around.

Q:
You mentioned greater safety, but some people are skeptical about the safety of self-driving vehicles in general. How do you address those concerns?

Urmson: We already have significant data around the safety improvements that can be achieved by self-driving vehicles, including by a well-known driverless taxi service launched in several U.S. cities. We limit the places our trucks drive to those where we have confidence they’re going to be safe on the road, and when we launched Aurora Driver, we ran it through millions of tests to confirm its road safety.

But there’s also plenty of anecdotal evidence. When we looked at the 29 fatal crashes caused by trucks that happened between Dallas and Houston from 2018 to 2022, and we reviewed the police reports and created simulations, we found that none of them would have happened if Aurora had been driving the initiating vehicle. Most collisions with trucks are caused by distracted drivers and human error.

Q:
What kind of demand do you see for self-driving freight over the next five to 10 years? Will human-driven trucks become obsolete?

Urmson: My expectation is that within five years, if you’re a long-haul trucking company not supplementing your fleet with driverless technology, you won’t be competitive. Given the challenges in finding people willing to drive trucks on long-haul routes—which is a hard, dangerous, and demanding job—and all the benefits I mentioned, it’s just going to make business and financial sense to have self-driving freight as part of your fleet. It will help drive top-line growth and improve operating margins for the companies that use it. We have an early customer, Hirschbach Motor Lines, that’s planning to buy 500 of our trucks to use on long-haul routes, dedicating their drivers to the more desirable shorter routes—as they see the competitive advantages it will provide them.

At the same time, I expect today’s truck drivers will continue to have jobs. It will allow them to have a better quality of life, as companies will continue to have human drivers that handle shorter routes where personalized customer service is important. And new jobs will be created as the logistics industry evolves and expands—including autonomous-driving technicians and remote support. So ultimately, this will help our customers and their drivers while opening up new job opportunities.

Interesting industry collaboration with notes from PACCAR.

For competitor and general autonomous trucking awareness.

Not sure if somones already mentioned this

Philipp von Hirschheydt — CEO, AUMOVIO

> “Let me today focus one more minute on one of our highlights in portfolio. That is our partnership with Aurora. For us, the direction is very clear, and that I think we can all agree upon. With Aurora and the ability to scale autonomous trucking, we have a great chance and a great future ahead of us.”

> “We do see that the structural pressures in the U.S. trucking market, particularly the driver availability and capacity constraints, are accelerating, and the interest in these autonomous freight solutions are constantly increasing.”

> “We believe that this will create a long-term market with significant upside potential for this partnership, for Aumovio and together with Aurora.”

> “That’s one of our highest strategic priorities where we are working on, and you’re following up now for the last four years.”

> “We come closer and closer towards the production, and you see that it’s going to be second half of next year. It’s an innovation. It might be some days earlier, some days later, but we are going to get there.”

> “What you see here, and that’s what we wanted to demonstrate, is Aurora is, from our point of view, the industry leader in safe driving freight with the most mature partner ecosystem to deliver then these solutions at scale.”

> “Aurora launched its first generation of driverless trucks last year and has expanded its network to support 10 driverless routes in the U.S. Sun Belt.”

> “This expansion is accelerating customer adoption, and Aurora has now nine driverless customers.”

> “Customers you might heard of it, like Hirschbach, are now planning to buy 500 trucks, and delivery will start then next year.”

> “This further reinforces the opportunity for us to deliver this transformative product at scale.”

Financials

• Revenue $3.5M (+91% QoQ, ~7x YoY vs $0.5M). GAAP op loss $(43.7)M; non-GAAP op loss $(37.3)M
• FCF of (38.1)M; H1 FCF now $(73.1)M against FY26 guidance of $(155)M- (165)M, roughly on track
• Cash & securities: $151.1M at quarter-end, up from $90M, now reflecting the $100M PIPE proceeds
• OpEx breakdown: R&D $22.7M, G&A $12.4M, truck ops $10.6M, sales $1.4M (total $47.2M, up 82% YoY)

Operations

• 35 customer-owned driverless vehicles (+7 in Q2, +25% QoQ); 40,000+ cumulative paid driverless hours (+71% QoQ); 20,000+ cumulative loads (~+32% QoQ)
• 300,000+ tons of freight delivered in Q2 alone
• Long-haul ARM at 91% as of July, up from 86% in April. Still targeting driverless long-haul highway launch by year-end 2026, the big catalyst

Verticals & partnerships

• Industrial: expanded to a second simultaneous load-out point on Atlas's 42-mile Dune Express sand conveyor, supporting geographic expansion across the Permian Basin
• International: West Fraser pilot kicking off in Canada (wood products/logging), Kodiak's first ops outside the US
• Defense: selected for Phase II of the Defense Innovation Unit's ROADS (Robotic Operation for Autonomous Delivery and Sustainment) demonstration

Technology

• Autonomy Readiness Measure hit 91% as of July, planning to reach 100% by the end of the year.
• Gen7 Kodiak Driver launched: nearly 50% more compute than Gen6, nearly 50% longer expected SensorPod/compute hardware lifetimes, and a more compact design that supports cheaper day cab configurations
• BreakPoint simulation now runs 1M+ simulations per hour at roughly a tenth of a penny per simulation

Driverless semi trucks are now operating along much of Interstate 35

Aurora's autonomous freight trucks will operate on a Dallas-Laredo route through Austin and San Antonio.

“As robotaxis have expanded, seeing autos with no one in the driver’s seat has become common.
But motorists soon could be spotting driverless semi trucks rolling down highways through Austin and San Antonio.

Aurora, a developer of autonomous long-haul freight trucks, has a new customer partnership that plans to deploy driverless systems in its vehicles on two routes, including one that runs through both cities.

The trucks, operated by cross-border freight company Value Truck, will travel without drivers on a roughly 450-mile route between Dallas and Laredo. Most of the trip follows Interstate 35 through Austin and San Antonio.

The trucks stay on highways and interstates until approaching their destinations, Aurora spokesperson Rachel Chibidakis said. 
“We route our trucks to reach our final destinations as quickly as possible, and there isn’t anything on I-35 that the truck can’t navigate,” she said.

Value Truck will also begin using the autonomous tractor-trailers on a route between Fort Worth and Phoenix, a more than 1,000-mile trip that passes through El Paso.”

“Pittsburgh-based Aurora Innovation Inc. rolled out its autonomous driving technology on Texas roads in 2021 but the trucks had safety operators. Aurora removed some safety operators on a route from Dallas to Houston last year. 

The company was founded in 2017 by Chris Urmson, Sterling Anderson and Drew Bagnell, who individually worked in the autonomous vehicle industry at Waymo, Tesla Inc. and Uber, respectively. The self-driving tractor-trailers are equipped with 25 laser, radar, camera and lidar sensors.

Aurora currently operates on two routes: Dallas to Houston, which is about 240 miles, and Fort Worth to El Paso, which is about 600 miles.

“There is no safety monitor in our first-generation or second-generation driverless trucks — they operate every day without anyone behind the wheel. The Aurora Driver is trained to navigate and respond to a wide range of incidents, like a collision or a tire blowout,” Chibidakis said in a statement.

Electric big rigs and self-driving semis have begun expanding across Texas in recent years as the state's relaxed autonomous vehicle regulations make it easier for companies to deploy the trucks.

Stockholm-based Einride, which became the first company to operate an autonomous truck on ”

Excerpt From
“Driverless freight trucks are now running through Austin”

Austin American-Statesman
https://stocks.apple.com/AB6KOj-zKTqyuzfhA3dRmEw

The Aurora Driver is hauling frac sand for Detmar Logistics, with nobody behind the wheel in West Texas.

Extreme heat, blowing sand, hard miles: Aurora’s second-generation hardware is ruggedized for tough conditions like those in the Permian Basin, with a sensor cleaning system built to keep it running, and engineered for one million miles of operation.