Driverless Trucks Are Now Making Freight Runs in Texas, and This Is the Company Doing It
The 18-wheeler autonomous trucks now operate without a safety driver in the cab, in an important step for the autonomous trucking developer.
Several companies are focusing their autonomous trucking efforts in Texas and the southwest, in an effort to automate truck routes.
Earlier this month, Aurora Innovation kicked off driverless truck operations in Texas, starting off with a freight route between Dallas and Houston for commercial customers. The SAE Level 4 trucks, operating without a safety driver in the cab, have been making the 250-mile route that has been the focus of quite a bit of testing by several autonomous truck developers, many of which have been getting driverless truck infrastructure ready.
Getting to this point took years of research and plenty of on-road testing, in environments open and closed to regular traffic, with Aurora Innovation achieving a successful round of validation testing. In fact, years of supervised testing by Aurora has already seen 10,000 customer loads delivered by its prototypes, spanning some 3 million miles.
Aurora's first two commercial customers are Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, with both having collaborated with the Level 4 developer in prior supervised tests. Hirschbach focuses on temperature- and time-sensitive freight, and like others in the industry, it prizes reliability and safety at a time when there is a driver shortage and other equipment-related pressures.
"Transforming an old school industry like trucking is never easy, but we can't ignore the safety and efficiency benefits this technology can deliver," said Richard Stocking, CEO of Hirschbach Motor Lines.
"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."
The busy Dallas to Houston route between warehouses is merely the first that Aurora plans to automate this year, with plans to expand driverless truck services to Phoenix and El Paso later this year.
And Aurora isn't alone in focusing on the vast truck routes in the American southwest that have made this part of the country a critical setting for SAE Level 4 truck innovation. Entire specialized hubs are being planned and built by the various autonomous truck developers nestled in Texas.
The SAE Level 4 tech itself is analogous to robotaxis, but only to a point. Driverless trucks need to look much farther down the road than robotaxis in busy cities, and take steps to respond to situations that won't unfold for another few seconds. This includes the ability to see pedestrians in the dark from hundreds of yards away, and being able to predict when another car might run a red light.
So the reach of its sensor hardware has to look further out in space and in time, as trucks can't stop on a dime.
"We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. Now, we are the first company to successfully and safely operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads," said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora.
With a successful on-road launch earlier this month, it's becoming clear that we'll look back on 2025 as a pivotal year for driverless trucks with the launch of Aurora's commercial service.
One of the next questions that the autonomous truck cottage industry will have to answer, well before the question of profitability, is just how seamless of a freight run process can be achieved along greater distances inside Texas with dozens of trucks operating at once and being monitored remotely.
Achieving a greater scale of operation will be among the next big tests for Aurora and others.
Will driverless trucks be a common sight in many US states by 2035, or will this remain a relatively niche technology confined to a handful of routes in a couple states? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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