The launch of autonomous truck deliveries between Dallas and Houston set to begin before the end of the year has been postponed.
Pittsburgh-based Aurora Innovation, Inc. now says it will delay the route until April 2025 to ensure everything runs smoothly and safely.
“We want to have extremely high confidence in the system as we go forward,” said Aurora CEO Chris Urmson, per Culture Map Dallas.
Last year, The Dallas Express reported that Dallas had emerged as one of the leading markets for testing new driverless freight technologies. At the time, self-driving trucks developed by Aurora had already traveled more than 400,000 miles between Dallas, Houston, and El Paso as part of the company’s pilot program.
Urmson said the remaining hurdles are “elements of surface street driving and some elements of construction that we see on the freeway.”
Once live, the state-of-the-art freight company will start with around 10 autonomous tractor-trailers on the Dallas-Houston corridor, with expectations that the fleet will grow to “tens” of trucks by the end of 2025, Urmson said.
“We are on the brink of a new era in mobility and logistics, and the excitement from the industry, our partners, and customers is palpable,” Urmson said in a press release announcing the company’s third-quarter earnings on October 30. “Our Commercial Launch is within sight, and we are in an incredibly strong position to deliver on our mission and commercialize autonomous trucking at scale.”
Aurora is also planning to haul freight without human drivers between Fort Worth and Phoenix. That rollout is expected later in 2025.
Aurora Innovation, Inc., which trades under the ticker AUR, has seen its stock price surge this year. Since the start of 2024, Aurora is up over 49%, well above the S&P 500’s already impressive 26%-plus appreciation.