Latest news with #AuroraDriver
New York Post
28-05-2025
- Automotive
- New York Post
Aurora driverless trucks have logged 1,200 miles in Texas
Aurora has quietly notched a major milestone in the race to commercialize autonomous vehicles, launching a fully driverless trucking service that has already logged more than 1,200 miles on public highways in Texas. The company's 18-wheelers have been shuttling frozen pastries while operating without a human in the cab along a stretch of Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston, marking a turning point for both the freight industry and the future of automated transport. Aurora's launch on April 27 followed four years of on-road testing with safety drivers and the completion of a rigorous 'safety case' — an evidence-based analysis used to justify the system's readiness for public deployment, according to the New York Times. Advertisement 4 Aurora, the Pittsburgh-based self-driving truck startup, says its trucks have logged 1,200 driverless miles in Texas. AP Since then, the company says its Aurora Driver system has completed more than 1,200 fully autonomous miles with freight partners Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines. 'This was a surreal moment,' Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson, who rode in the back seat during the inaugural round-trip haul, wrote in a blog entry. '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… And yet, it's all pretty boring. That's exactly the way it should be.' Advertisement Urmson, a former leader of Google's self-driving car project, said Aurora's trucks are outfitted with a 360-degree sensor suite capable of detecting objects from up to 1,000 feet away. The system is designed to drive cautiously, obeying speed limits, avoiding aggressive maneuvers and using air bursts to keep sensors clean in rain. For now, the vehicles only operate during daylight hours and in good weather, though Aurora intends to expand routes to El Paso and Phoenix by the end of 2025. Advertisement 4 Aurora 18-wheelers have been shuttling frozen pastries while operating without a human in the cab along a stretch of Interstate 45 between Dallas and Houston. Aurora Still, the rapid rollout has raised alarms among safety experts, labor advocates and even seasoned truckers. 'My initial thought is: It's scary,' Angela Griffin, a veteran driver who has experienced firsthand how weather and construction zones can confuse even human drivers, told the Times. 'I don't see how a driverless truck would have been able to read and recognize the threat that was imminent.' Advertisement Regulatory oversight of autonomous trucks remains limited. 4 Aurora's launch on April 27 followed four years of on-road testing with safety drivers and the completion of a rigorous 'safety case' Aurora The Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has yet to issue comprehensive rules specific to automated freight, though it says it is 'actively working' with state governments and industry stakeholders to modernize safety protocols. Some experts worry that states like Texas — which welcomes innovation with fewer restrictions — could become testing grounds for unproven tech. 'There's still no requirement for independent checks and balances,' Philip Koopman, an autonomous vehicle safety researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, told the Times. 'Aurora's being more cautious than most, but the regulatory structure simply isn't there yet.' Despite these concerns, some industry veterans believe automation could ultimately make roads safer. 4 'This was a surreal moment,' Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson, who rode in the back seat during the inaugural round-trip haul, wrote in a blog entry. Aurora Advertisement 'I think the growth of jobs will outpace the addition of autonomous trucks,' said Gary Buchs, a longtime driver who now supports autonomous technologies. 'Younger people want the jobs changed.' Aurora insists its technology is not designed to replace human drivers, but to meet rising demand for freight and address labor shortages. 'It is a noble job,' Urmson said. 'That said, people don't particularly want to do it anymore.' Advertisement With only two trucks currently running driver-free — and with an observer temporarily reinstated at the truck manufacturer's request — Aurora's rollout is still in its early stages. The company has plans to scale to at least 20 trucks this year.
Axios
20-05-2025
- Automotive
- Axios
Aurora's driverless trucks have a human observer behind the wheel again
Less than three weeks after Aurora Innovation made a splash with the commercial launch of the first driverless semi trucks in Texas, the company is putting a humanobserver in the driver's seat. Why it matters: The decision is another speed bump for an industry leader after a widely watched milestone, coming just days after co-founder Sterling Anderson left to take a big job at General Motors. The big picture: Aurora's autonomous technology will still do the driving, and the change won't affect the company's development plans, CEO Chris Urmson wrote in a blog post Friday. Urmson said the decision to move an "observer" from the rear of the cab into the driver's seat was made at the request of Paccar, the manufacturer of Aurora-owned Peterbilt trucks. Between the lines: Paccar wanted someone in the driver's seat "because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform," Urmson wrote, without elaborating. Paccar declined to comment. "We are confident this is not required to operate the truck safely based on the exhaustive testing (covering nearly 10,000 requirements and 2.7 million tests) and analysis that populates our safety case. "Paccar is a long-time partner and, after much consideration, we respected their request." Zoom in: Per Aurora, observers had already been riding along in the back of the cab during trips expected to run into bad weather. (The Aurora Driver currently does not operate in bad weather.) Aurora says the truck would automatically pull itself to the side of the highway in such circumstances. Having someone in the back seat helps with a timely recovery because they can switch over to manual driving mode to complete the trip. The intrigue: A short-seller's report by Bleecker Street Research, dated May 14, suggested Aurora and Paccar weren't on the same page about the timing of the "driver-out" commercial launch. Indeed, the Peterbilt logo had been removed or covered in photos Aurora provided to mark the April 27 launch. Aurora noted that for the time being, it owns and operates its trucks, and validated and approved them for driverless operations. Eventually, it will evolve to a subscription model, where Aurora will get paid by the mile for trucks equipped with the Aurora Driver that are sold by manufacturing partners like Paccar to carrier customers. Aurora has driven over 6,000 driverless miles in its company-owned trucks as of last week, per the company. By the numbers: Aurora stock is down nearly 25% in the last five trading sessions, following Anderson's departure and the Bleecker report, though it's still up more than 120% over the last year. What we're watching: Bleecker's analysis suggests Aurora faces difficulties as it tries to scale its autonomous technology over the next few years with Paccar and its other manufacturing partner, Volvo Trucks. "We are making significant progress towards driverless technology and will remove the safety driver only when we have thoroughly evaluated all factors and deem it appropriate," Volvo spokesperson Ceren Wende told Axios.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cantor Fitzgerald Reiterates Overweight on Aurora (AUR), Targets $12
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Aurora Innovation, Inc. (NASDAQ:AUR) stands against other AI stocks on Wall Street's radar. US President Donald Trump is all set to revive the country's struggling coal industry. Last month, he signed a series of executive orders so that the government could meet the surging energy demand of AI data centers. Executive Order 14241 will allow several older coal-fired plants about to retire to continue generating power for the foreseeable future. This will be done to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence. READ NOW: and Repeatedly promoting coal as a power source for data centers, Trump told the World Economic Forum in January that he would be approving power plants for AI through an emergency declaration. He also called on tech companies to use coal as a backup power source. 'They can fuel it with anything they want, and they may have coal as a backup — good, clean coal.' However, with the tech industry investing billions of dollars to expand renewable energy and leveraging nuclear power as a way to meet its growing electricity demand, the use of coal is actually against the tech companies' environmental goals. Nevertheless, the tech industry does acknowledge that fossil fuel generation will eventually be needed to help navigate the electricity demand from AI. However, these companies are focusing on natural gas as it emits less half the CO2 of coal per kilowatt hour of power. 'To have the energy we need for the grid, it's going to take an all of the above approach for a period of time. We're not surprised by the fact that we're going to need to add some thermal generation to meet the needs in the short term.' We would certainly consider it but I don't know if I'd say it's at the top of our list.' -Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 2024. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). A closeup of a self-driving hardware unit inside the dashboard of a passenger Innovation, Inc. (NASDAQ:AUR) is a self-driving technology company. On Monday, May 19, Cantor Fitzgerald maintained a positive outlook on the stock with an 'Overweight' rating and a $12.00 price target. The company has recently achieved a significant milestone by launching its commercial self-driving service, Aurora Driver, in Texas. This milestone not only aligns with the management's projected timeline but also places the company as the first to introduce self-driving trucks in the United States. Aurora will also be deemed a pioneer in operating a commercial autonomous driving service with heavy-duty trucks on public roads in the country. The company has announced plans to extend its driverless services by the end of the year. Its Autonomy Performance Indicator (API), a metric used to track the performance and readiness of autonomous vehicle systems, has reached 95% in the first quarter of 2025. This figure exceeds Aurora's commercialization goal of 90%, a win for the company, which underscores its advancement in delivering reliable self-driving technology. Overall, AUR ranks 11th on our list of AI stocks on Wall Street's radar. While we acknowledge the potential of AUR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AUR and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cantor Fitzgerald Reiterates Overweight on Aurora (AUR), Targets $12
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Aurora Innovation, Inc. (NASDAQ:AUR) stands against other AI stocks on Wall Street's radar. US President Donald Trump is all set to revive the country's struggling coal industry. Last month, he signed a series of executive orders so that the government could meet the surging energy demand of AI data centers. Executive Order 14241 will allow several older coal-fired plants about to retire to continue generating power for the foreseeable future. This will be done to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence. READ NOW: and Repeatedly promoting coal as a power source for data centers, Trump told the World Economic Forum in January that he would be approving power plants for AI through an emergency declaration. He also called on tech companies to use coal as a backup power source. 'They can fuel it with anything they want, and they may have coal as a backup — good, clean coal.' However, with the tech industry investing billions of dollars to expand renewable energy and leveraging nuclear power as a way to meet its growing electricity demand, the use of coal is actually against the tech companies' environmental goals. Nevertheless, the tech industry does acknowledge that fossil fuel generation will eventually be needed to help navigate the electricity demand from AI. However, these companies are focusing on natural gas as it emits less half the CO2 of coal per kilowatt hour of power. 'To have the energy we need for the grid, it's going to take an all of the above approach for a period of time. We're not surprised by the fact that we're going to need to add some thermal generation to meet the needs in the short term.' We would certainly consider it but I don't know if I'd say it's at the top of our list.' -Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 2024. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). A closeup of a self-driving hardware unit inside the dashboard of a passenger Innovation, Inc. (NASDAQ:AUR) is a self-driving technology company. On Monday, May 19, Cantor Fitzgerald maintained a positive outlook on the stock with an 'Overweight' rating and a $12.00 price target. The company has recently achieved a significant milestone by launching its commercial self-driving service, Aurora Driver, in Texas. This milestone not only aligns with the management's projected timeline but also places the company as the first to introduce self-driving trucks in the United States. Aurora will also be deemed a pioneer in operating a commercial autonomous driving service with heavy-duty trucks on public roads in the country. The company has announced plans to extend its driverless services by the end of the year. Its Autonomy Performance Indicator (API), a metric used to track the performance and readiness of autonomous vehicle systems, has reached 95% in the first quarter of 2025. This figure exceeds Aurora's commercialization goal of 90%, a win for the company, which underscores its advancement in delivering reliable self-driving technology. Overall, AUR ranks 11th on our list of AI stocks on Wall Street's radar. While we acknowledge the potential of AUR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AUR and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Mint
16-05-2025
- Automotive
- Mint
Driverless Trucking Firm Aurora Puts Human Back in Driver's Seat
(Bloomberg) -- Driverless vehicle developer Aurora Innovation Inc. is putting a human back in front of the wheel of big rigs operating in Texas, reversing course less than three weeks after the company began commercial autonomous service there. The decision to move an 'observer' from the rear of the cabin into the driver's seat was made at the request of PACCAR Inc., which manufactured the trucks, Aurora Chief Executive Officer Chris Urmson said Friday in a post on the company's website. The trucks will still be operated by the Aurora Driver autonomous system, but the person will be able to intervene if needed. 'We are confident this is not required to operate the truck safely based on the exhaustive testing (covering nearly 10,000 requirements and 2.7 million tests) and analysis that populates our safety case,' Urmson wrote of having a human in the front seat. 'PACCAR is a long-time partner and, after much consideration, we respected their request.' Aurora said on May 1 that it began commercial trucking services in Texas with two fully driverless vehicles, both built by PACCAR. It was Aurora's first commercial self-driving service on public roads. The company plans to expand to El Paso, Texas, and Phoenix by the end of the year. Friday's post suggests the companies disagreed about the need for a human to safeguard against issues that might arise in the early days of the commercial driverless service. PACCAR requested the change because of certain prototype parts in the trucks, Urmson said. A PACCAR spokesman did not return a request seeking comment. A short seller report by Bleecker Street Research on May 14 said Aurora had not yet obtained PACCAR's permission to commercialize its trucks with autonomous driving and that heavy truck manufacturer thinks it will take longer for the technology to be ready. A spokesperson for Aurora declined to comment on the report. Aurora has lost key executives over the past year. General Motors Co. said this week that Aurora co-founder and Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson is taking the same title at the automaker. General Counsel Nolan Shenai left around the start of the year and Yanbing Li, who was senior vice president of engineering, departed Aurora in August to join Datadog Inc. --With assistance from Ed Ludlow. More stories like this are available on
