Dive Brief:

• Aurora Innovation has launched its second driverless route from Fort Worth to El Paso, Texas, according to a Tuesday press release.
• The 600-mile route addresses customer pain points since it is known to be a challenge to staff and for traditional drivers to complete in a single day, Aurora said in a 2025 Q3 shareholder letter.
• Customers for the El Paso route include Hirschbach Motor Lines, McLeod and Russell Transport. The company plans to deploy hundreds of driverless trucks in 2026.

Dive Insight:

While Aurora has launched its driverless route from Fort Worth to El Paso, it is working on validating the return trip as well, which is near completion, CEO Christopher Urmson said in a Q3 earnings call.

With over 100,000 driverless miles on public roads and five driverless trucks delivering customer freight on a regular basis, Aurora continues to quickly expand its operations. In May, the company extended its Fort Worth-to-El Paso lane in Texas to Phoenix with Werner Enterprises and in August it began autonomous nighttime operations.

“To meet expected customer demand in the second quarter of 2026, we plan to launch our second-generation commercial hardware kit on a new fleet of trucks that will enable driverless operation without a partner requested observer,” Urmson said.

Paccar requested human oversight or an observe due to the OEM’s concern over prototype parts being in the trucks. Both have been working together to develop the technology on Paccar trucks.

“PACCAR continues to test its autonomy-enabled truck platform at its facilities. Aurora then plans to integrate the platform with the highly-scalable hardware being co-developed with AUMOVIO,” per the release.

Next up, Aurora is working on a new hardware to help reduce costs, which will be integrated with Volvo VNL Autonomous. The hardware is built to last over a million miles, expected to detect objects 1,000 meters away and allows the Aurora Driver to operate in harsh weather conditions, per the release.

“We continue to work with Volvo and PACCAR and continue to be excited about the plan forward with them,” said Urmson on the company’s earnings call. “This is a way for us to take timing into our own hands, ensure that we can deliver this and support and fortify our volumes for next year as a response to the customer interest that we're seeing today.”