DEPLOYDatabase

Company

Aurora Innovation

avaurorainnovation.com

American autonomous-trucking company (Nasdaq: AUR), founded 2017 by Chris Urmson, Sterling Anderson, and Drew Bagnell.

Track Aurora Innovation
Founded
2017
HQ
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Status
Public
Regulatory status1 Regulatory filing

Aurora Innovation holds 1 Regulatory filing, per the DEPLOY registry.

See all 1 filings
PublicNASDAQ: AUR

CategoryTrucks

Appears inLogistics robots

Funding

$1.9B

Models

3

Deployments

34

Employees

1.9k

Patents

13

Overview

American autonomous-trucking company (Nasdaq: AUR), founded 2017 by Chris Urmson, Sterling Anderson, and Drew Bagnell. Developer of the Aurora Driver (SAE Level 4), which it integrates onto PACCAR, International, and Volvo trucks. Launched the first commercial driverless freight service in the US (Dallas-Houston, May 2025) and is scaling an observer-free fleet on a 2nd-generation International LT platform.

Reality check

Driverless miles (company-claimed)

Sep 2026: 500,000+ driverless miles since commercial launch.

2026 fleet (company-claimed)

Sep 2026: Fully allocated to exit 2026 with 200 driverless trucks under Transport-as-a-Service deals; driverless customers nearly doubled this year.

Utilization (company-claimed)

Trucks for McLane, Werner and others average 225,000+ miles a year, more than twice a typical truck.

Gen 2 hardware (company-claimed)

Rated for 1 million miles at less than half the cost; Roush targets upfitting 20 trucks a week from October 2026.

Driverless passenger rides (company-claimed)

Sep 2026: Investor Day guests rode with no one behind the wheel on part of the Dallas-Houston route.

Hirschbach intent (company-claimed)

Sep 2026: plans to run 500 trucks through Driver-as-a-Service from 2027. Non-binding.

2030 vision (company-claimed)

More than 30,000 driverless trucks and a multi-billion-dollar revenue stream.

Verified record

Verified deployments
34 deployments on file
Active incidents
1 incident on file

Key facts

Commercial launch (May 2025)

The first US commercial driverless trucking service, on the Dallas-Houston route.

Aurora Driver

An SAE Level 4 system shared across PACCAR, International and Volvo trucks.

Observers

PACCAR trucks carry an OEM-requested observer who does not drive; observer-free operation is targeted on the 2nd-gen International LT.

Routes and terminals

Dallas-Houston and Fort Worth-El Paso; a commercial truck terminal in Houston opened in 2024.

TIME Best Inventions (TIME-stated, Oct 2026)

TIME named Aurora Driver 2, the second-generation driverless truck system launched in July 2026, to its Best Inventions of 2026 list.

Driverless fleet build (company-stated, Oct 2026)

20+ driverless trucks built and coming into the fleet as of Oct 28 2026. Aurora now expects Roush to reach 20 trucks a week in early December, building toward over 1,000 a year.

Roush upfit site (company-stated, Oct 2026)

Roush upfits Aurora Driver trucks on a line in a 20,000 sq ft facility in Livonia, Michigan dedicated to Aurora.

Data & sources

Company filings

2

Press releases

10

News coverage

2

Patent documents

13

Web sources

8

35 sources backing this record.View all →

Partnerships

Every company Aurora Innovation has built with, alongside the ones only announced in a press release.

16 total12 operating4 just announced

Most-frequent partners

  1. 1PACCAR3× joint3 total
  2. 2Charger Logistics2× joint
  3. 3FedEx2× joint
  4. 4Value Truck2× joint
  5. 5Volvo Autonomous Solutions2× joint6 total
  6. 6DENSO Corporation1× joint1 total

Most recent

  1. Aurora x Charger Logistics (Driverless Trucks)2026-07-28
    with Charger Logisticsjust announced
  2. Aurora x Charger Logistics2026-07-28
    with Charger Logisticsjust announced
  3. Aurora x Value Truck2026-07-27
    with Value Truckjust announced
  4. Aurora Innovation x Value Truck2026-07-27
    with Value Truckjust announced
  5. Aurora x International LT second-gen driverless trucks2026-07-22
    with International Trucksoperating

Aurora Innovation on the deployment map

View the global map

34 verified deployments across 7 regions, newest verified Jul 2026. Explore where Aurora Innovation's robots are operating, by place and type.

Free to use on your site, with a link back to DEPLOY.

View the full Aurora Innovation deployment record →

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Relationships

IInternational TrucksManufacturerRRoushManufacturerMMcLane CompanyCustomerVVolvo Autonomous SolutionsDeployerVVolvo Autonomous SolutionsCo-developerSSchneider NationalDeployerWWerner EnterprisesDeployerPPACCARManufacturerFFedExCustomerTToyota Motor CorporationManufacturer

Claims ledger

Public, dated claims by Aurora Innovation, each tracked against the evidence. Status is a DEPLOY assessment from primary sources: verified means an independent source confirms it; contradicted means one refutes it; open means the outcome is not yet determinable. Every entry keeps its verbatim quote and source so you can check the call yourself.

Claim Integrity: 33% (1 of 3 resolved claims verified; 6 tracked)
  • OpenCapacity · claimed 2026-07-22
    “Aurora has launched its second-generation driverless trucks powered by Aurora Driver 2 hardware, built to last one million miles. As of end of June, the Aurora Driver completed 440,000 driverless miles. The new fleet will deploy across 10 driverless routes throughout the U.S. Sun Belt. Trucks are capable of driving nonstop from Phoenix to Fort Worth (~1,000 miles, 15 hours).”
    claim sourcestatus evidencecite this claim
  • VerifiedCapability · claimed 2026-05-01
    “Aurora trucks can carry freight 1,000 miles in 15 hours, faster than what a human driver can legally do”

    Correction: this verdict was recorded with the claim date as its effective date. DEPLOY recorded it on 2026-07-09, which is its effective date.

    claim sourcestatus evidencecite this claim
  • OpenCapacity · claimed 2026-04-01 · deadline 2026-12-31
    “Aurora Innovation CEO Targets Hundreds of Driverless Trucks and $80M Run Rate by End of 2026”

    250,000 driverless miles as of January 2026. Scaling to 500 trucks. $80M run rate not confirmed but driverless operations are verified via live YouTube stream. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx-uofnrMYI

    claim sourcestatus evidencecite this claim
  • OpenCapacity · claimed 2026-02-01 · deadline 2026-12-31
    “Goal: 200 fully driverless trucks by end of 2026”

    Aurora is scaling to 500 trucks with a leading carrier per the more recent announcement. 200 trucks by end of 2026 is plausible but not confirmed. https://ir.aurora.tech/news-events/press-releases/detail/136/leading-carrier-selects-aurora-to-scale-autonomous-fleet-to-500-trucks

    claim sourcestatus evidencecite this claim
Show 2 more claims
  • Partly trueTimeline · claimed 2026-01-01 · deadline 2027-03-31
    “By end of 2026 or early 2027”

    Correction: this verdict was recorded with the claim date as its effective date. DEPLOY recorded it on 2026-07-09, which is its effective date.

    claim sourcestatus evidencecite this claim
  • OverdueTimeline · claimed 2024-01-01 · deadline 2024-12-31
    “Aurora expects its Texas freights to be fully self-driving by end of 2024”

    Aurora missed its end-of-2024 target. Commercial driverless trucking launched April 2025, 4 months late.

    claim sourcestatus evidencecite this claim

Disagree with a status? Aurora Innovation can submit a correction with evidence and we log the response on the record. Methodology and the full industry ledger live at /stats/claim-integrity.

Explainers

Plain-language answers to the questions people ask about Aurora Innovation, from DEPLOY’s explainer library. Each is written in the language of the question and cross-checked against this registry.

What is Aurora and how does its autonomous trucking work?
Aurora Innovation is a US autonomous-vehicle company exclusively focused on commercial Class 8 trucking. Aurora launched commercial driverless trucking service between Dallas and Houston in April 2024 with freight customers including Werner Enterprises, Hirschbach Motor Lines, and Schneider. The company was founded by Chris Urmson (Google self-driving alumni) with Sterling Anderson and Drew Bagnell; it is a publicly-traded NASDAQ company following a 2021 SPAC merger.Read the full explainer →
How do Bot Auto, Kodiak, and Einride compare for self-driving trucking?
Bot Auto, Kodiak AI, and Einride operate three structurally distinct autonomous-trucking strategies. Bot Auto runs Class 8 humanless commercial truckloads on Texas corridors via brokered freight (Houston-Dallas). Kodiak AI operates customer-owned driverless trucks at Atlas Energy's Permian Basin frac-sand operations. Einride runs autonomous electric cabless trucks under a private-road point-to-point commercial model (GE Appliances in Tennessee). Three operators, three different envelopes, three different commercial bets.Read the full explainer →
Why are frontier AI labs (OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta) entering robotics in 2025-2026?
The major frontier AI research labs are committing institutionally to robotics in 2025-2026 as a distinct industry cluster. OpenAI formally relaunched its robotics division in May 2026 after a 4-to-5-year hiatus. Google DeepMind operates the Gemini Robotics program as part of its broader model-to-embodiment research. Meta has expanded AI robotics work alongside its Reality Labs portfolio. The cluster is not about any one lab making a robot; it is about foundation-model research lines extending toward physical-world embodiment.Read the full explainer →

Current leadership (5)

ArrivalsChris Urmson from Waymo, Sterling Anderson from Tesla

DeparturesChris Urmson to Waymo, Sterling Anderson to Tesla

Founders (3)

See all founders across the registry →

Board (8)

Former / Previously (3)

Safety record

1 incident on record (1 minor). Most recent: Dec 2024.

minor
1

Most recent: Dec 2024

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →

Incidents affecting Aurora Innovation (1)

Includes incidents linked directly to this company, to its models, or to deployments of its models or under its operation. Retracted incidents are excluded from this view but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Operator customers (2)

Brains developed (1)

Recent coverage

Aurora Innovation in third-party press

Aurora outlines plan to scale to 30,000 driverless trucks

Oct 30, 2026

Aurora’s Driverless Trucks on Pace for 2027 Expansion Target

Oct 30, 2026

Aurora adds 500-truck Charger MOU toward 30,000-truck goal

Oct 28, 2026

Peers

93 peers across 2 segments. Every Aurora Innovation competitor derived from shared form-factor and application-domain edges.

av(88)

57 companies in this segment · highly_concentrated (HHI 4969.122215850638) · leader Waymo at 6990%

autonomous vehicle(5)

  • Kodiak AIdirect competitor(reported)
    strong
  • Plusdirect competitor(reported)
    strong
  • Einrideadjacent competitor(reported)
    moderate
  • Embark Trucksdirect competitor(reported)
    moderate
  • Gatikadjacent competitor(reported)
    moderate

Mentioned on (34+)

Registry pages whose text names Aurora Innovation.

AI systems (1)

Aurora Driver

People (1)

Preston Feight

About 1 more pages name Aurora Innovation and were not checked here.