May brought a milestone to the world of autonomous trucking: Aurora Innovation started delivering loads to customers via fully driverless trucks on highways in Texas.
The Pittsburgh-based company said in a news release that it was the first to operate a commercial service of this kind on public roads, and previewed plans to expand its service to El Paso and Phoenix later this year. It’s now running driverless delivery routes for customers, including Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, between Dallas and Houston.
“We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly,” CEO and co-founder Chris Urmson said in a statement. “Our commitment to building a transformative technology, earning trust, and assembling a strong ecosystem of customers and partners have made this pivotal milestone possible.”
In the years leading up to its commercial launch, Aurora ran pilot programs that involved driving over 3 million miles and delivering more than 10,000 customer loads, per the release.
And in other Aurora-related news, one of the company’s co-founders departed and joined General Motors. Sterling Anderson will serve in the new role of EVP of global product and chief product officer at GM, where he’ll be responsible for end-to-end product lifecycles for internal combustion engine vehicles and EVs.
Robotaxis: Meanwhile, Amazon-owned robotaxi startup Zoox announced that it’s adding a seventh city to its roster of testing locations: Atlanta. Zoox also is testing its autonomous vehicles, with human safety operators, in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles, Austin, and Seattle.
In announcing the expansion to Atlanta, Zoox noted the city’s reputation as an emerging tech hub, as well as its “growing population, diverse road conditions, traffic patterns, and unique weather conditions, including frequent thunderstorms.” Zoox also cited Atlanta’s population density as a factor supporting “strong demand” for transit options like robotaxis.
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In Atlanta, as in the other cities where it’s testing, Zoox first deploys a limited number of vehicles to gather data on city streets. The company starts testing once it’s mapped the area.
Zoox said it plans to open up ride-hailing services to the public in Las Vegas and San Francisco later this year.
Alphabet-owned robotaxi company Waymo shared in a blog post that it plans to establish a new factory in the Phoenix area in partnership with automotive supplier Magna. The company said the new plant “will build thousands of Jaguar I-PACEs equipped with our fully autonomous technology.”
Through next year, according to Waymo, the plant will produce more than 2,000 autonomous I-PACE vehicles to add to Waymo’s AV fleet. The company said it currently has more than 1,500 vehicles in its fleet (which also includes Zeekr vehicles) across Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco.
“The Waymo Driver integration plant in Mesa is the epicenter of our future growth plans,” Ryan McNamara, Waymo’s VP of operations, said in a statement. “With our partners at Magna, we’ve opened a manufacturing site that enables the cost efficiency, flexibility, and capacity to scale our fleet to new heights.”
Eventually, according to Waymo, the plant will have the capacity to assemble “tens of thousands” of vehicles annually.
And in other Waymo news, the startup recently told CNBC that it’s doubled the number of paid trips it’s provided in the past five months, surpassing 10 million. And Waymo is now testing out its tech in other cities including Houston, Orlando, and San Antonio.