If you saw one on I-45 this week, your eyes weren’t deceiving you: That big 18-wheeler roaring down the highway didn’t have anyone at the wheel, in the cab, or in the truck at all.

After years of testing its self-driving technology up and down I-45, Pittsburgh-based Aurora Innovation (Nasdaq: AUR) made history this week by launching America’s first driverless class 8 commercial trucking delivery service between Dallas and Houston.

Aurora operates locally out of a “South Dallas” terminal in Palmer, east of Waxahachie. To reinforce its local presence, in January 2023 the company appointed former Istation president and COO Ossa Fisher as its Dallas-based president.

Closing its ‘safety case’ and sending trucks out alone

One of Aurora’s first commercial driverless trucking trips, on I-45 between Dallas and Houston. [Photo: Aurora]

This week’s driverless launch followed a years-long, painstaking process of closing Aurora’s “safety case” for the totally human-free trucking, the company said. Since 2022, the company has been testing its technology with a safety driver in its truck’s cabs on I-45. 

To date, the company says its Aurora Driver has completed over 1,200 miles without a driver. With this week’s milestone, Aurora has become the first company to operate a commercial self-driving service with heavy-duty trucks on public roads—and it now plans to expand its driverless service to El Paso and Phoenix “by the end of 2025.”

“We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly,” Aurora Co-Founder and CEO Chris Urmson said in a statement. “Now, we’re the first company to successfully and safely operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads.”

The CEO wanted a close-up view of this week’s first driverless trip, so the first commercial roll-out wasn’t technically completely human-free.

Aurora CEO Chris Urmson moments before departing on Aurora’s inaugural driverless trip. [Photo: Aurora]

“Riding in the back seat for our inaugural trip was an honor of a lifetime,” Urmson said. “The Aurora Driver performed perfectly and it’s a moment I’ll never forget.”

He added that Aurora’s commitment “to building a transformative technology, earning trust, and assembling a strong ecosystem of customers and partners have made this pivotal milestone possible.”

Aurora’s launch customers for the driverless runs are Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, a veteran-owned carrier that delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies have had long-standing “supervised” commercial pilots with Aurora, with a safety driver along for the ride. Until now.

The tech that’s driving the trucks—and seeing ‘beyond four football fields’

Video still of Aurora Driver hardware animation [Image: Aurora]

Aurora’s flagship product, the Aurora Driver, is an SAE L4 self-driving system that is first being deployed in long-haul trucking. The Aurora Driver features a powerful computer and sensors that can see beyond the length of four football fields, the company said, enabling it to safely operate on the highway.

In April 2023, the company said its Aurora Driver had become “feature complete.”

In over four years of supervised pilot hauls, the Aurora Driver has delivered over 10,000 customer loads across three million autonomous miles, the company added, with capabilities including predicting red light runners, avoiding collisions, and detecting pedestrians in the dark hundreds of meters away.

Aurora says its launch trucks are equipped with the Aurora Driver hardware kit and “numerous redundant systems” including braking, steering, power, sensing, controls, computing, cooling, and communication, enabling them to safely operate without a human driver. 

Aurora Innovation has begun fully driverless commercial trucking deliveries between Dallas and Houston. [Photo: Aurora]

Aurora reached a key milestone in January 2024, when the company partnered with Continental, which is based in Germany with a U.S. HQ in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Aurora said the two companies had finalized the design and architecture of the future fallback system and hardware of the Aurora Driver—an SAE Level 4 autonomous driving system—that Continental plans to start production of in 2027.

The finalized hardware design came less than a year after the companies entered an “industry-first partnership” aimed at high-volume manufacturing of autonomous trucking systems. 

So why is a driverless truck needed? The company notes that while trucking is a “trillion dollar industry” in the U.S., it faces challenges—including an aging driver population with high turnover rates, skyrocketing operating costs, and underutilized assets.

Those issues are getting more serious every year, the company said, making the value proposition of autonomous trucks—which Aurora says will offer “safe, reliable capacity without an impact to jobs”—highly attractive to the trucking industry.

Customers aim to help ‘transform logistics’

Lior Ron, the founder and CEO of Uber Freight, said that when the two companies first partnered more than four years ago, “we set out to transform the future of logistics—and today, that future is here.”

“Moving autonomous commercial freight without anyone behind the wheel is a historic step forward in our mission to build a smarter and more efficient supply chain,” he added in a statement, “and one we’re proud to lead alongside Aurora.”

In June 2024, building on their Dallas-Houston pilot, Uber Freight and Aurora offered early access to autonomous trucking to “hundreds of carriers.”

Hirschbach CEO Richard Stocking said Aurora’s “transparent, safety-focused approach to delivering autonomous technology has always given me confidence they’re doing this the right way.”

“Transforming an old school industry like trucking is never easy,” Stocking added, “but we can’t ignore the safety and efficiency benefits this technology can deliver. Autonomous trucks aren’t just going to help grow our business—they’re also going to give our drivers better lives by handling the lengthier and less desirable routes.”

Before sending its trucks human-free on the highway, Aurora says it closed its “safety case” and released a driverless safety report, while briefing a long list of entities on the Aurora Driver’s readiness for driverless operations. That list includes the following, per the company:

• Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
• National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
• Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT)
• Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS)
• Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV)
• Local law enforcement in Texas

One key Texas player who seems fine with this week’s milestone is Governor Greg Abbott.

“These new, autonomous semis on the I-45 corridor will efficiently move products, create jobs, and help make our roadways safer,” Abbott said in a statement. “Texas offers businesses the freedom to succeed, and the Aurora Driver will further spur economic growth and job creation in Texas. Together through innovation, we’ll build a stronger, more prosperous Texas for generations.”

The governor said Texas “continues to attract emerging industries because we offer an environment that welcomes entrepreneurs and encourages innovation—key factors in Texas’ unmatched economic success. Texas ranks No. 1 for technology and innovation, and that continues as we welcome America’s first self-driving trucks.”

You can see an Aurora blog post about the CEO’s inaugural driverless ride—and view a time-lapse video of the run—by going here.

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