Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ:AUR) is maintaining its focus on autonomous trucking even as investor interest has surged around robotaxis, Chief Financial Officer Dave Maday said during Canaccord Genuity’s second annual virtual sustainability summit.
Why Aurora is prioritizing trucking over robotaxis
Maday said Aurora continues to view trucking as “the best first market for AV deployment,” citing market size, economics, and the ability to deliver near-term benefits to carriers. He characterized trucking as a roughly $1 trillion total addressable market, compared with what he described as a $60 billion to $70 billion U.S. ride-hailing market.
- Driver-related costs: Maday cited escalating driver costs and ongoing shortages, adding that the driver population is aging.
- Fuel efficiency: He said Aurora is “getting 15% more on our trucks” on fuel efficiency.
Maday also said trucking routes—often long-haul and highway-heavy—are well suited for initial deployments, with most distribution centers located within about five miles of a highway.
Ride-hailing remains on the roadmap, but without a timeline
While reiterating that trucking is the current priority, Maday said Aurora has not abandoned ride-hailing. “For us, it’s not about if we should go into… ride hailing, it’s when,” he said, adding that the company has already demonstrated “transferability” of its technology across use cases.
As an example, he said that in 2024 Aurora was operating Toyota Siennas between Toyota’s headquarters and DFW Airport using the same software and hardware stack.
However, Maday said he did not have a date for ride-hailing and did not share new near-term plans. He tied any future entry more closely to the company’s planned third-generation hardware, when Aurora expects to benefit from lower hardware costs and scale from trucking deployments. In his view, ride-hailing success depends on reducing costs to help expand the overall market.
Market scope and geographic expansion plans through 2028
Maday said the U.S. trucking market totals “200 billion-plus” vehicle miles traveled annually. Aurora’s approach to defining its serviceable market is to focus on lanes where autonomous driving can create the greatest value—generally longer routes that are predominantly highway but still require off-highway capability for endpoints.
Looking ahead, Maday said that by the beginning of 2028 Aurora expects to be operating within a serviceable addressable market of about 50 billion vehicle miles traveled. For 2026, he said the company’s technology focus is on operating throughout the Sun Belt before expanding northward.
He added that the lanes Aurora operates today represent about 3.6 billion vehicle miles traveled, and said the company began operating on 10 different routes shortly after an April launch.
OEM relationships and expanding the truck portfolio
Maday described original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnerships as central to Aurora’s scaling strategy, calling lineside installation—integrating the Aurora Driver kit into existing vehicle assembly lines—the “most efficient path” to deploying tens of thousands of trucks.
He said Aurora’s partnerships with PACCAR and Volvo remain in place and that together they represent about 50% of the market. Maday said Aurora made notable progress with Volvo over the past year, including beginning lineside installation of the Aurora Driver kit into Volvo’s pre-production line to refine processes ahead of launch. He described a process in which kits are sent from Fabrinet to Volvo, with trucks coming off the line fully equipped.
For PACCAR, Maday said Aurora’s first driverless operations are on PACCAR Peterbilt trucks, but he characterized PACCAR as “a little bit further behind” on lineside integration. He said Aurora expects PACCAR to be ready when the company’s third-generation hardware arrives, without providing a specific timeline.
Maday also said Aurora added a new truck fleet to address truck supply constraints as demand rose and the technology advanced. The company is using International stock trucks, installing an Aurora Driver hardware kit and adding a drive-by-wire overlay to provide necessary redundancies. He said Aurora is building the first 25 internally before shifting upfit work to Roush, which he described as a well-recognized automotive upfitter.
According to Maday, Roush is expected to build about 20 trucks per week in the third quarter, and the International-based fleet will be the first to use Aurora’s second-generation hardware kit. He said those trucks are expected to be driverless.
On the topic of ride observers, Maday said Volvo- and International-based deployments would not require a ride observer, and he does not expect such a requirement for PACCAR trucks manufactured at PACCAR plants. He said the ride observer requirement applies to the current fleet and reflects PACCAR’s conservatism with prototype parts rather than any limitation of the Aurora Driver, adding that “the Aurora Driver behaves as anticipated.”
2026 to 2028: scaling, business model evolution, and hardware generations
Maday framed Aurora’s commercialization in stages, suggesting 2026 would be strong and that 2027 would mark a significant step-up. He said Aurora expects in 2027 to:
- Migrate to a driver-as-a-service business model, which he described as the model customers ultimately want and as more capital-efficient for Aurora.
- Launch its third-generation hardware kit, enabling production at “tens of thousands” of units.
He contrasted the company’s hardware generations, describing the first generation as hand-built with limited supply and not designed for one million miles, while saying the second-generation kit—designed by Aurora and manufactured by Fabrinet—is intended to last one million miles and supports production of more than 1,000 units. He said the third generation is intended to move from contract manufacturing to more automated serial manufacturing, supporting higher volume.
On cost reduction, Maday said his confidence stems from progress on the second generation and early third-generation work. He said second-generation kits are “appreciably cheaper” than today’s trucks and that commercial agreements are locked in with parts sourced and builds underway, with testing supporting the company’s one million mile durability conclusion. For third generation, he pointed to benefits from design-for-manufacturing work, automation in serial production, and scale in procurement.
Maday also discussed Aurora’s lidar, FirstLight, saying each iteration is “more capable and less expensive,” and cited a move toward “lidar on a chip” as a manufacturing advantage. He said Aurora has been working with Innoviz for about two years.
On competition, Maday said carriers generally want choice, but argued AV systems are difficult to build and integrate and suggested Aurora has a multi-year lead in trust and product maturity. He said Aurora does not require exclusivity and expects only a small number of autonomous trucking suppliers over time.
International expansion is possible, Maday said, citing markets like Japan with aging driver demographics and high labor costs, but he emphasized that Aurora’s current focus is executing in the U.S.
On regulation, Maday described the current environment as primarily a state and federal framework. He noted that most states allow autonomous driving, while California has not allowed autonomous trucking in the past and is working on regulations it would like to adopt for 2026. At the federal level, he cited “positive momentum,” referencing the AMERICA DRIVES Act and engagement with Department of Transportation leadership, and said a federal framework could help reduce state-by-state friction.
About Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ:AUR)
Aurora Innovation, Inc is a technology company specializing in the development of self-driving vehicle systems for both passenger and commercial applications. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Aurora has built an end-to-end platform—known as the Aurora Driver—that integrates proprietary software, machine learning algorithms and a suite of sensors (LiDAR, radar and cameras) to enable vehicles to operate safely and efficiently in diverse driving environments.
The company’s core business revolves around designing, testing and deploying its autonomy stack on vehicles from established automotive and transportation partners.
