Top-level executives at Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle developer Aurora Innovation Inc. asserted during the company’s Q1 earnings call that 2023 is shaping up to be a transformative year for the company.
So far this year, the company has hit several milestones, including reaching the “feature complete” stage for its Aurora Driver autonomous trucking product called Aurora Horizon as well as striking a partnership with trucking company Continental.
The company says this will lead to scalable commercialization of it product via a “hardware-as-a-service” structure where Aurora will sell its tech as a hardware kit. Executives said that Continental is investing “what may ultimately be over $300 million in nonrecurring engineering cost” to co-develop and manufacture the kits and will ship them to Aurora’s partners, and Aurora (NASDAQ: AUR) will pay Continental from its eventual revenue stream.
“This is 100% aligned with the vision, that our model was always going to be an asset-like, as-a-service business,” CEO Chris Urmson said. “We think that is the way that we can best support our customers and partners and the way we best align incentives. We're not stepping on anyone's toes, and they're not stepping on ours.”
Earlier this week, Aurora announced yet another partnership, this time with Hirschbach Motor Lines, to begin a commercial pilot to test and deploy Aurora’s autonomous trucking technology for transporting refrigerated cargo between Dallas and Houston, something Aurora said “requires mature operations and sophisticated technology.”
The Aurora Driver being “feature ready” means that it now is in a phase of safety validation and refinement, which Urmson said was 44% complete as of March 31, 2023. Urmson said that later this year, Aurora Driver will hit its next milestone, “Aurora Driver Ready,” the final step before commercialization in 2024.
During Q1 2023, Urmson said that Aurora Horizon drove over 41,000 commercial miles and that it experienced zero safety-critical interventions by human operators, and that only 4% of the miles driven required any on-site support. He said that as the company looks ahead to its commercial launch, reducing instances of needed on-site support from human operators will be key to supporting both scalability and profitability. During the quarter, 219 loads were transported on Aurora’s launch lane between Dallas and Houston in Texas, and 76% of the transports achieved an autonomy performance indicator score of 98% or higher. It hit both its 2023 Q1 and Q2 goals of transporting 40 loads per week and 50 loads per week, respectively.
“2023 is proving to be a pivotal year for the achievement of our significant feature complete technology milestone, our exciting partnership with Continental and continued progress in advancing our overall business to effectively commercialize our self-driving technology,” Urmson said.
Financially, Aurora posted a net loss for the quarter of $196 million, compared to a $77 million loss during Q1 2022. Operating costs for the quarter totaled $208 million, with $143 million attributed to research and development, primarily in personnel costs. Overall, Chief Financial Officer Richard Tame described the company’s balance sheets as “very strong,” with the company posting $966 million in cash and short-term investments.
After-hours trading of Aurora's stock on Wednesday had a gain of about 1.4% at $1.36 per share compared to the day's close at $1.34 per share, down 0.75% from the start of the day.
