Autonomous truck technology company Aurora Innovation, Inc. announced plans to expand driverless freight hauling operations to the Phoenix area next year.
On September 5, Pennsylvania-headquartered Aurora announced plans to to extend the existing Fort Worth to El Paso commercial freight lane by opening operations to Phoenix.
Starting in the first half of 2025, Aurora says that they will begin hauling freight for customers with autonomous truck technology from Fort Worth and Phoenix as part of a pilot program.
The company says that they will “go driverless on that route later in the year.”
“The 1,000-mile passage takes over 15 hours to complete, making it particularly compelling for autonomy,” company officials said in a news release.
Aurora says that they have hauled 7,000 loads for pilot customers across nearly two million commercial miles to date.
Aurora uses a self-driving truck hardware kit called the Aurora Driver that can be integrated into an existing vehicle to allow it to operate autonomously.
In November 2023, Aurora announced that a lane between South Dallas and Houston would be fully autonomous by late 2024.
Our autonomous trucks haul commercial freight every day between Dallas and Houston. @SpectrumNews1TX joined us for a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re preparing for safe, efficient, driverless operations on public roads. Learn more here: https://t.co/w8EzxUlj1P
— Aurora (@aurora_inno) August 12, 2024
In January 2024, Aurora announced plans to deploy at scale by 2027, sending thousands of trucks integrated with the Aurora Driver to autonomously haul freight across the U.S.