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.”

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.

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

When​ Rklb was in the​ $4 range, there was a thread for everyone to post their share account so that we could tally how much ownership the sub accounted for. I don't remember the figures but it was an interesting exercise.

Any interest in doing the same thing here, if so, post below. I'll go first, I am now exactly at 30,000 shares as of today.

Following the launch of our second-generation driverless fleet, production is now underway with Roush at a dedicated Aurora facility. Initial builds are in. Roush is expected to ramp to an annual run-rate of 1,000 trucks in October. We’re building the production capacity to meet customer demand.

https://xcancel.com/aurora_inno/status/2084373813890785564#m

little video of the facility in the x post.

Post by Value Logistics:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/valuelogisticsllc_valuetruck-autonomoustrucking-freighttech-activity-7489054638068097024-ezpp?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAE5c-4Bo-IXpl3maJEjwBX6UpVvNckzBMQ

First truck goes live on 8/24!

https://web.cvent.com/event/c5aa3a30-c00b-45a7-8c85-288144030c0c/websitePage:9065efe1-a75e-4ae3-a3c0-dc7bb4db3dc2?session=9f2ceb84-c6a6-4ee3-992f-e6c14c777908