Aurora Innovation Inc. (AUR.US), the autonomous trucking company, said while reporting quarterly results on Wednesday that it expects to miss this year's production target but indicated it could get back on track by 2027.
Aurora said supplier issues created constraints, making it unable to reach its goal of having 200 trucks on the road before February next year. This means Aurora will be unable to meet its 2026 revenue target.
Chief Financial Officer David Maday said in an interview that the supplier problems have been resolved, and the production schedule is now on track to achieve the previously announced goal of 1,000 trucks on the road by the end of 2027.
Looking ahead, demand from nine different customers has exceeded the company's capacity. "We do think we're at a commercial inflection point," Maday said during an interview along the truck assembly line at the Roush Enterprises Inc. plant in suburban Detroit, where Aurora's trucks are assembled.
Aurora aims to have 30,000 trucks on the road by the end of 2030, and as that goal approaches, the company intends to shift its business model. It will no longer own and operate autonomous trucks itself to serve customers, shifting instead to freight customers owning their own fleets.
According to Maday, the company should achieve positive cash flow in 2028, when revenue increases and balance-sheet assets decline.
To achieve this goal, Aurora will have to raise capital. The company currently has credit facilities and hasn't ruled out equity issuance.
Since going public through a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, Aurora has weathered a series of ups and downs. In 2022, as investors lost interest in funding autonomous driving companies, the company implemented cost-cutting measures. At the time, CEO Chris Urmson sent a memo to employees listing various ways to conserve cash. Urmson even raised the idea of selling the company to tech giants like Microsoft (MSFT.US) or Apple (AAPL.US).
The company struggled through the downturn and completed a funding round in 2024, but at the same time postponed the full driverless commercial operation milestone to 2025. Co-founder Sterling Anderson left in May last year to become chief product officer at General Motors (GM.US).
Aurora's stock once traded above $17 per share after its listing and is currently around $5 per share.
Aurora's path to mass production has not been smooth. The company had already achieved driverless truck operation last year, but partner automaker Paccar (PCAR.US), out of caution, required a driver to remain in the vehicle. The company is currently working with Paccar and plans to completely remove the in-cab safety driver in the next-generation vehicle.
Its current trucks are manufactured by International Motors, a unit of Germany's Traton Group.
"Paccar is a conservative-risk company," Maday said. "They assessed it from a liability risk perspective and insisted on keeping a person in the truck."
At the Roush plant, workers complete the final production steps, upgrading trucks with the autonomous driving control system and a suite of cameras, lidar and sensors. In December, the plant will produce up to 20 autonomous Class 8 trucks per week. Maday said they may double that capacity.
Aurora successfully removed the driver in July. Customers including Hirschbach Motor Lines, McLane Co. and Detmar Logistics are conducting driverless operations.
"Our story is now very clear," Maday said. "We've achieved driverless operation, we're producing trucks, and we have ample demand this year and next."
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