Autonomous vehicle technology company Aurora Innovation plans to expand on the success of its first driverless commercial launch and add night driving to its operations.
Aurora said Thursday that in the second half of 2025, it will start sending its self-driving trucks out at night and during adverse weather conditions like rain or heavy wind. The company, which provided the update in its first-quarter shareholder letter, also plans to expand its driverless trucking route beyond Dallas to Houston, and into El Paso and Phoenix.
“We’d like to have a high return on asset for every truck that we have, and so we’ll try to drive efficiency to get as many miles on as many trucks as fast as possible,” Aurora CFO Dave Maday said Thursday during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. “We should be able to double our drive time as soon as we unlock night. And that’s our next key milestone.”
Aurora already runs freight with self-driving trucks in those conditions, but with a human safety operator behind the wheel. The company said it has completed more than 4,000 miles in a single self-driving truck without a driver running freight for its launch customers Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight.
In the week since Aurora’s commercial launch, the company has already expanded to two driverless trucks operating on a daily basis and says it expects to operate “tens of trucks” by the end of 2025.
The milestone and future plans come alongside another major shift at the company: the resignation of co-founder and chief product officer Sterling Anderson.
Aurora shared new details Thursday in its first-quarter shareholder letter about plans to grow its autonomous freight service, signaling it will offer more specific timelines for key milestones as it expands.
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Aurora realized $871,000 in pilot revenue from its drivered commercial freight runs, which was up 22% on a quarterly basis and 54% compared to the same time last year, per Maday.
“At commercial launch, we will begin recognizing revenue,” he said Thursday during Aurora’s first-quarter earnings call. “This will include driverless revenue, as well as continued pilot revenue … With our deliberate approach to launch, we expect our 2025 revenue to be modest, in the mid-single-digit millions. For modeling purposes, we expect revenue to build sequentially throughout the year.”
The company reported $211 million in operating expenses, including $153 million for R&D. It used $142 million in operating cash and $8 million in capex in the first quarter, ending with nearly $1.2 billion in cash and short-term investments. Aurora expects to spend $175 million to $185 million per quarter for the rest of this year.
In the short-term, Aurora plans to own, operate, maintain, and insure its own trucks — made available on the Uber Freight network — for customers. The company is working with partners Paccar and Volvo Trucks to build self-driving trucks at scale. Starting in 2027 or earlier, Aurora expects customers to buy those trucks directly from manufacturers so it can shift to a driver-as-a-service model and achieve “high gross margins,” per Maday.
This article was updated with more information about Aurora’s recorded revenue and the company’s next milestones.
