Company nears Feature Complete milestone;
demonstrates advanced road capabilities and outlines framework to
measure progress toward autonomy readiness
Today, Aurora Innovation, Inc. (NASDAQ: AUR) is holding its 2022
Analyst & Investor Day at its autonomous trucking terminal in
Dallas. At the event, executives will share details of Aurora’s
progress toward the commercial launch of its autonomous trucking
service, Aurora Horizon. In addition, attendees will experience
Aurora Driver-operated autonomous truck rides along Texas
Interstate 45 around Dallas and from Dallas to Houston.
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the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220928005409/en/
Aurora Horizon Product Roadmap, Q3 2022:
Nearing the Feature Complete milestone. (Photo: Aurora)
Reporting progress of critical milestones
The Aurora Horizon roadmap to launch outlines key milestones
toward delivering a safe, scalable self-driving product for
trucking fleets. To close out Q3, today Aurora announced the
release of Aurora Driver Beta 4.0 and outlined its Autonomy
Readiness Measure, the framework the company committed to sharing,
which will enable all stakeholders to measure Aurora’s progress
toward the launch of its commercial trucking service, Aurora
Horizon.
“We’re making tremendous progress across our technology, pilots,
operations, and vehicle platforms, and we’re excited to share these
advancements with our analyst and investor community,” said Chris
Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora. “We remain focused on
launching a safe and scalable product and will continue to hold
ourselves to the highest standards for autonomy performance and
commercial readiness.”
Aurora Driver Beta 4.0: Nearing Feature Complete
The release of Aurora Driver Beta 4.0 continues to progress the
Aurora Driver toward commercial readiness. The technical
advancements will enable the Aurora Driver to autonomously handle
unexpected obstacles that vehicles can face on roads every day,
including:
- Detecting and maneuvering around a variety of objects and
debris on the road.
- Detecting repainted lane lines in complex construction
zones.
The beta 4.0 advancements build on previous capabilities,
enabling the Aurora Driver to be a safe, courteous, and responsible
road user with the ability to quickly and reliably detect and
respond to unfamiliar objects and boundaries that can frequently
occur. More details on Aurora Driver Beta 4.0 can be found
here.
Autonomy Readiness Measure: Progress toward a
commercial-ready Aurora Driver
Aurora believes the key to developing autonomous technology for
safe, commercial operation is through robust development, testing,
and validation through both simulation and on-road driving. The
launch bar for the Aurora Driver is a closed Safety Case, which is
Aurora’s evidence-based approach to demonstrate that its
self-driving vehicles are acceptably safe to operate on public
roads. Once Aurora achieves its Feature Complete milestone,
expected at the end of Q1 2023, the company will begin sharing an
Autonomy Readiness Measure that reflects progress toward the
commercial launch of Aurora Horizon.
- Autonomy Readiness Measure: Safety Case percent complete
– Each quarter, Aurora will share the percentage of Safety Case
claims it has completed.
Once the Aurora Driver is Feature Complete, Aurora also plans to
provide a supplemental measure of its on-road autonomy performance
as an indicator of its progress in everyday driving scenarios.
- On-road autonomy performance indicator: Percentage of miles
in autonomy - Each quarter, Aurora will share this indicator as
a supplemental way to track the progress of its technology as the
company works toward achieving its launch bar of a closed Safety
Case for its commercial launch lane. The Aurora Driver’s autonomy
performance indicator is a quarterly measurement, reflected as a
percentage of total commercially representative miles driven over
the quarter, that incorporates three components:
- Miles driven during the quarter that did not require support,
with support meaning human assistance via a vehicle operator touch
or other on-site support
- Miles where the vehicle received support but where it’s
determined, through internal analysis including simulation, that
the support received was not required by the Aurora Driver
- Miles driven in autonomy with remote input from the company’s
Aurora Beacon tool
As Aurora has said previously, the company believes there are
significant limitations to the data that on-road driving can
provide for autonomous development and validation. On-road driving
performance alone will not determine when Aurora Horizon launches
and the company does not anticipate that this indicator will be
100% even at launch, because certain situations (e.g., flat tires)
will always require on-site support. Aurora fundamentally believes
it’s important to build and maintain a strong safety culture.
Conducting internal analysis after a vehicle has received support
is one of the ways the company furthers this culture, empowering
Aurora’s vehicle operators to intervene in the autonomous system
without fear of reprisal, including how such support would affect
perceived performance.
Aurora’s Analyst & Investor Day presentations will be
webcast at ir.aurora.tech, with executive keynotes scheduled to
begin at 9:45 a.m. EDT and expected to conclude by 11:45 a.m. EDT.
A replay of the webcast will be available for 30 days following the
live presentations.
About Aurora
Aurora (Nasdaq: AUR) is delivering the benefits of self-driving
technology safely, quickly, and broadly to make transportation
safer, increasingly accessible, and more reliable and efficient
than ever before. The Aurora Driver is a self-driving system
designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling
semi-trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles, and underpins
Aurora Horizon and Aurora Connect, its driver-as-a-service products
for trucking and ride-hailing. Aurora is partnered with industry
leaders across the transportation ecosystem, including Volvo,
PACCAR, Toyota, Uber, FedEx, U.S. Xpress, Schneider, Werner,
Covenant, and Uber Freight. To learn more, visit
www.aurora.tech.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking
Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the federal securities laws. All statements
contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of
historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements,
including but not limited to, those statements around our ability
to achieve certain milestones around the development and
commercialization of the Aurora Driver on the timeframe we expect
or at all, and the metrics that we report to the public in the
future. These statements are based on management’s current
assumptions and are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve
known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors
that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to
be materially different from any future results, performance or
achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking
statements. For factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from the forward-looking statements in this investor
letter, please see the risks and uncertainties identified under the
heading “Risk Factors” section of Aurora Innovation, Inc.’s
(“Aurora”) Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June
30, 2022, filed with the SEC on August 12, 2022, and other
documents filed by Aurora from time to time with the SEC, which are
accessible on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. All forward-looking
statements reflect our beliefs and assumptions only as of the date
of this press release. Aurora undertakes no obligation to update
forward-looking statements to reflect future events or
circumstances.
Aurora Press Kit
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220928005409/en/
Investor Relations: Stacy Feit ir@aurora.tech (323) 610-0847
Media: Khobi Brooklyn press@aurora.tech (415) 699-3657
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