With a load of pastries, Aurora hits driverless truck milestone in Texas
Aurora Innovation said Thursday it has successfully launched a commercial self-driving trucking service in Texas, a milestone for the autonomous vehicle industry that came with a load of frozen pastries.
Why it matters: While driverless trucks on the highway may seem scary to some motorists, Aurora and other AV developers say the technology will make roads safer and help bolster a critical sector of the American economy, which often can't find enough drivers.
Driving the news: After four years of testing with humans behind the wheel, Aurora pulled the driver for the first time last Sunday, April 27, on a route between Dallas and Houston.
The action came after Aurora completed its safety case — an evidence-based argument for why the technology is safe to deploy — and had recorded three million autonomous miles hauling more than 10,000 customer loads.
Since the weekend, the Aurora Driver has completed over 1,200 autonomous miles with its launch partners, Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, a refrigerated trucking carrier, the company said..
Between the lines: The milestone was a crowning achievement for Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson, considered a pioneer in autonomous vehicle technology.
Urmson was also an early leader at Google's early self-driving car project, now called Waymo. And people he led at Google went on to leadership positions at other AV startups.
Urmson rode in the back of a Hirschbach cab for the first round-trip journey between Dallas and Houston.
In a blog post, he described the experience as "surreal."
"I'm cruising down the highway at 65 miles per hour, not behind the wheel, but in the rear seat, watching the scenery unfold as a truckload of pastries are driven by the technology I helped create," he wrote.
"It's novel. It's technically extraordinary. And yet, it's all pretty boring. The driving is smooth, courteous and predictable. And of course, that's exactly the way it should be."
What's next: Aurora plans to expand its driverless service to El Paso, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona by the end of 2025.
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