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Aurora Innovation in 2026: the state of its driverless trucking

Aurora has built 20+ driverless trucks for Texas and Southwest routes, made $3m revenue in Q3 2026 and targets 200+ trucks by February 2027.

Christopher Parkmond
By Christopher ParkmondUpdated 6 min read
aerial view of road between green trees during daytime

Aurora Innovation is the first company running a commercial driverless truck service on US public roads, and as of its third-quarter 2026 shareholder letter (28 October 2026) it had built more than 20 driverless trucks and passed 500,000 commercial driverless miles. It is still a heavily loss-making business: Q3 revenue was $3 million against a net loss of $234 million, and it has cut its 2026 revenue forecast to about $9 million because truck production is running roughly six weeks behind plan.

This overview covers what Aurora sells, where its trucks run, who it works with, the regulatory picture and how it compares with Kodiak and Waabi. Figures are as of 3 November 2026 unless stated.

What the Aurora Driver is

The Aurora Driver is Aurora’s self-driving system: software, sensors (including its own FirstLight long-range lidar) and an onboard computer fitted to heavy trucks built by partner manufacturers. Aurora sells it in three ways:

  • Transportation as a service (TaaS): Aurora operates the trucks and carriers pay per load or mile. This is the current model.
  • Driver as a service (DaaS): a carrier owns the truck and pays Aurora to use the Aurora Driver. Aurora expects this to start in 2027.
  • Hardware as a service: with AUMOVIO, the automotive business spun off from Continental in September 2025, which will build the third-generation hardware kit in New Braunfels, Texas, from the second half of 2027.

The second-generation kit, launched on International LT Series trucks on 22 July 2026, is designed for one million miles of operation, has lidar range of about one kilometre and costs about half as much to build as the first generation, Transport Topics reported.

The Dallas–Houston launch and the routes that followed

Aurora began driverless customer deliveries on the I-45 corridor between Dallas and Houston in late April 2025 and announced the launch on 1 May 2025. Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines were the launch customers. Aurora said it had closed its safety case first and had completed more than 1,200 driverless miles at that point.

Expansion since then, according to the company’s filings:

  1. July 2025: driverless night operations validated, which Aurora said roughly doubled potential truck utilisation (Q3 2025 letter).
  2. Late October 2025: driverless service on the 600-mile Fort Worth to El Paso lane, with five driverless trucks on regular schedules at the time.
  3. 2026: routes extended to Phoenix and Laredo. By July 2026 Transport Topics listed Dallas–Houston, Fort Worth–El Paso, El Paso–Phoenix, Fort Worth–Phoenix and Dallas–Laredo among ten routes.
  4. November 2026: trucks begin driving directly to customer sites, including through security checkpoints, with site-to-site service for most customers expected over the following months (Q3 2026 letter).

Aurora reports 100% on-time delivery since launch and, in its Q2 2026 letter, zero collisions attributed to the Aurora Driver through June 2026.

The observer-in-cab decision

Less than three weeks after the launch, Aurora moved a human observer from the rear of the cab into the driver’s seat. Chief executive Chris Urmson said PACCAR, which builds the Peterbilt trucks Aurora was using, had asked for this “because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform”, Axios reported. Aurora said the Aurora Driver still did all the driving and that its safety case did not require a person at the wheel.

The fix was a change of truck. The International LT fleet launched in July 2026 runs with no human in the cab; a roadside assistance specialist may sometimes sit in the back seat on longer routes, and an Aurora spokeswoman told Transport Topics these staff are not observers. Aurora is phasing out the first-generation Peterbilt trucks.

Partners and customers

  • PACCAR: working to integrate the Aurora Driver on Peterbilt and Kenworth production lines.
  • Volvo: Volvo Autonomous Solutions plans fully driverless operations early in 2027 and more than 300 driverless trucks in 2027, ahead of full industrial production in 2028. It has already carried supervised autonomous loads for DSV and AVI-SPL in Texas.
  • International and Roush: Roush upfits the International LT trucks and is working towards annual capacity of more than 1,000 trucks.
  • AUMOVIO (formerly Continental’s automotive arm) and NVIDIA: hardware production and the DRIVE Thor-based computer.
  • Customers: Uber Freight, Hirschbach, Werner, FedEx, Schneider, McLane, Detmar Logistics, Value Truck and Charger Logistics, among others named in Aurora’s letters and releases.

Two carriers have signed memoranda of understanding for 500 trucks each under the DaaS model: Hirschbach in April 2026 and Charger Logistics in October 2026. Both are non-binding. Aurora says the Charger deal could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars over several years but cautions that it may not become a definitive order.

Regulation: the warning-device exemption

US rules require truckers to place reflective triangles behind a stopped truck, which is impossible without a person on board. In December 2024 the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) refused a request from Aurora and Waymo to use cab-mounted warning beacons instead, calling it too broad. FMCSA then issued Aurora a run of short waivers from October 2025, FreightWaves reported, during which beacons on 34 trucks covered more than 500,000 miles without reported faults.

On 7 October 2026 FMCSA granted a five-year exemption (Federal Register document 2026-20734) to Aurora and to any other Level 4 carrier that notifies the agency first. It runs to 7 October 2031. Conditions reported by FreightWaves include amber beacons mounted at least 100 inches high that activate within five minutes of a stop, no hazardous materials or passengers, and crash reporting within five days.

At state level, Aurora’s Q2 2026 letter says California now permits driverless truck deployment and that Aurora has applied for testing with a driver there. The company also backs the federal BUILD America 250 Act, which would create a national framework for autonomous trucks.

Financials and targets

Key figures from Aurora’s shareholder letters, filed with the SEC on Form 8-K:

  • Q3 2026 revenue: $3 million (Q3 2025: $1 million). Q2 2026: $2 million.
  • Q3 2026 net loss: $234 million. Operating cash use was about $170 million and capital spending $36 million.
  • Liquidity: more than $1 billion in cash and short-term investments at 30 September 2026. Aurora has also raised money by selling shares through an at-the-market programme ($215 million net in Q2, $41 million in Q3).
  • 2026 revenue guidance: about $9 million, down from the $14–16 million given in July.
  • Q4 2026 cash use: about $250 million.
  • Fleet targets: more than 200 trucks by the end of February 2027 (previously end of 2026), production of about 20 trucks a week by early December, more than 1,000 driverless trucks by the end of 2027 and over 30,000 by the end of 2030.

How Aurora compares with Kodiak and Waabi

Kodiak is the other listed US driverless-truck company. Its trucks run fully driverless for Atlas Energy Solutions on private and lease roads in the Permian Basin oilfield, while its long-haul highway service is still to come: in its Q2 2026 results (6 August 2026) it said it was targeting driverless long-haul operations by the end of 2026. Waabi, based in Toronto, is private and works with Volvo. When it raised $750 million in Series C funding plus up to $250 million from Uber in January 2026, its Volvo trucks in Texas still used safety drivers, Fortune reported.

Aurora Innovation Kodiak AI Waabi
Ownership Listed (AUR) Listed (KDK) Private
Driverless operations Public highways in Texas since April 2025, extended to Phoenix in 2026 Off-highway oilfield haulage in the Permian Basin; long-haul targeted for end of 2026 Safety drivers in Texas as of January 2026
Driverless trucks 20+ built (October 2026) 35 customer-owned (30 June 2026) Not disclosed
Main truck partners PACCAR, Volvo, International, AUMOVIO Customer-owned trucks for Atlas Volvo (VNL Autonomous)
Latest quarterly revenue $3m (Q3 2026) $3.5m (Q2 2026) Not disclosed
Cash and investments Over $1bn (30 September 2026) $151.1m (30 June 2026) $750m Series C plus up to $250m from Uber (January 2026)

Kodiak is due to report third-quarter results on 5 November 2026, so its figures above may change within days. Aurora leads on highway driverless miles and cash; Kodiak reported more driverless trucks at its last count, though in a narrower, off-highway setting. Aurora’s next test is whether it reaches 200 trucks by February 2027 and turns its two 500-truck memoranda into firm orders.

Sources

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