Episode 215 | Preparing for Driver-Out Operations

Ossa Fisher, President of Aurora joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Aurora is preparing for driver-out operations in Texas by the end of the year. Aurora is taking a disciplined approach that Ossa likens to the preparation of elite athletes training for the Olympics.

Aurora’s advanced perception system combined with their proprietary FirstLight LiDAR is assisting the company in their journey towards driver-out operations. The FirstLight LiDAR can detect obstacles up to four football fields away, significantly enhancing safety. 

Aurora’s development strategy combines on-road testing, controlled track environment testing, and extensive simulations. They’re rigorously preparing for various weather conditions and rare events to ensure maximum safety and reliability. 

The company’s partnerships with PACCAR, Volvo and Uber Freight will enable the company to scale operations and build a meaningful business overtime. The business model could change over time as it was developed to be flexible as the company scales driver-out commercial operations.

The first lane that Aurora will operate driver-out will be Dallas to Houston followed by El Paso to Fort Worth. It’s has been a big journey for Aurora to get to driver-out operations and it will be a bigger journey once driver-out operations commence and expand to multiple lanes.

Recorded on Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Preparing for Driver-Out

4:46 Uber Freight Partnership

7:14 Customer Exceptions for Driver-Out

9:06 Driver-Out Lanes

9:48 Fright Lane Patterns

11:05 Scaling Aurora

14:09 Safety

19:29 Building Trust

22:11 Driver-Out Operations & Infrastructure

23:47 OEM Partnerships

26:55 CDL

30:57 Economics of Aurora 

37:26 Aurora’s Impact on the Trucking Industry 

39:46 Key Takeaways

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