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Aurora will miss 2026 goal but remains on track for 2027
Supplier issues push back autonomous trucking company's target of 200 trucks on the road
An International LT truck outfitted with Aurora hardware at a Roush Enterprises CleanTech facility in Livonia, Mich. (Sarah Rice/Bloomberg)
Key Takeaways:
- Aurora Innovation expects to miss its 2026 target of 200 trucks, reaching that level in February after supplier constraints delayed production.
- The shortfall reduces 2026 revenue, but resolved supplier issues support 1,000 trucks by the end of 2027 amid demand from nine customers.
- Aurora plans customer-owned fleets, targets positive cash flow in 2028 and may raise capital while pursuing 30,000 trucks by 2030.
Autonomous trucking company Aurora Innovation expects to fall short of its production target for this year but said it’s on track to recover for 2027.
Aurora said supplier issues caused constraints, and the company won’t meet its goal of 200 trucks on the road until February. That means Aurora will fall short of its revenue goal for 2026, the company said Oct. 28 as it reported quarterly results.
The supplier issues have been resolved, and production is now on pace to meet its previously stated goal of 1,000 trucks on the road by the end of 2027, Chief Financial Officer David Maday told Bloomberg News. Going forward, the company has more demand than it can handle from nine different customers.
“We really think we’re at a commercial inflection point,” Maday said while walking along the truck’s assembly line in a Roush Enterprises plant in suburban Detroit. Roush handles the final assembly of Aurora’s rigs.
Aurora aims to shift its business model as it inches closer to its target of 30,000 trucks on the road by the end of 2030. Instead of owning and operating driverless trucks for clients, it plans to manage fleets that its shipping customers will own. The company should hit positive cash flow in 2028 with more revenue and fewer assets on its books, according to Maday.
To get there, Aurora will have to raise money. The company has a line of credit but could issue shares.
Aurora has worked through a string of pitfalls since going public via a special purpose acquisition company in 2021. It enacted cost cuts in 2022, when investors had soured on funding self-driving firms. At the time, CEO Chris Urmson sent a memo to staff that listed ways to preserve cash. Urmson even floated the idea of selling the company to a tech giant like Microsoft Corp. or Apple Inc.
The company held on and raised money in 2024 but also delayed going fully driverless with its commercial trucks to 2025. Co-founder Sterling Anderson left in May of last year to become chief product officer at General Motors Co.
Aurora’s stock reached a high of more than $17 after going public and now sits at around $5 a share.
The road to production has been bumpy. Aurora took the driver out of its trucks last year, only to have its manufacturer, Paccar Inc., request that a human remain behind the wheel. The company is working with Paccar to remove the driver in a future generation of trucks. Its current rigs are built by International Motors, a subsidiary of Germany’s Traton Group.
“Paccar is risk averse,” Maday said. “They looked at it from a liability perspective and wanted someone in the cabin.”
At Roush’s plant, workers complete the final production step, upgrading the trucks with driverless controls and a suite of cameras, lidar and sensors. The factory will produce up to 20 self-driving Class 8 trucks a week in December. Maday said they may double that capacity.
Aurora was able to take out the driver in July. Customers including Hirschbach Motor Lines, McLane Co. and Detmar Logistics are running driverless operations.
“Our story is now pretty straightforward,” Maday said. “We’re driverless, we’re producing trucks, and we have plenty of demand for this year and next.”
