Aurora (AUR.US) mass production of driverless trucks delayed again: this year's target of 200 units missed, 2026 revenue expectations unmet, projected to return to normal in 2027

According to information from Zhihu Finance APP, autonomous truck company Aurora Innovation Inc. (AUR.US) said during its quarterly earnings release on Wednesday, Eastern Time, that it expects to fall short of its production target for this year but anticipates getting back on schedule by 2027.

Aurora stated that supplier issues have caused constraints, preventing the company from meeting its goal of having 200 trucks on the road before February next year. This means Aurora will not be able to reach its 2026 revenue target.

Chief Financial Officer David Maday said in an interview that the supplier issues have now been resolved, and production is expected to meet the previously announced goal of getting 1,000 trucks on the road by the end of 2027. Looking ahead, demand from nine different customers already exceeds the company’s current capacity.

“We do believe we’re at a commercial inflection point,” Maday said in an interview along the truck assembly line at the Roush Enterprises Inc. facility in suburban Detroit, where Aurora trucks are assembled.

Aurora’s target is to have 30,000 trucks on the road by the end of 2030. As this target approaches, the company plans to pivot its business model. Instead of owning and operating its autonomous trucks to provide services to clients, the fleets will be owned by freight customers themselves. According to Maday, the company expects to achieve positive cash flow by 2028, as revenue increases and balance sheet assets decrease.

To achieve this target, Aurora will need to raise funds. The company currently has a line of credit and is also considering additional stock offerings for financing.

Since going public in 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company, Aurora has experienced a series of challenges. In 2022, with investors losing interest in funding autonomous driving companies, the company implemented cost-cutting measures. At that time, CEO Chris Urmson sent a memo to employees outlining various ways to conserve cash. Urmson even proposed the idea of selling the company to tech giants such as Microsoft (MSFT.US) or Apple (AAPL.US).

The company weathered the downturn with difficulty and completed a funding round in 2024, but postponed the milestone for fully unmanned commercial truck operations until 2025. Co-founder Sterling Anderson left in May of last year to become Chief Product Officer at General Motors (GM.US).

Aurora’s stock price, which once rose above $17 per share after its IPO, is now trading at about $5 per share.

The road to mass production for Aurora has not been smooth. Last year, the company managed to remove safety drivers from its trucks, but partner manufacturer PACCAR (PCAR.US) required drivers to remain onboard out of caution. Currently, Aurora is working with PACCAR to completely remove onboard safety drivers in the next generation of vehicles. Its current trucks are manufactured by International Motors, a subsidiary of Germany’s Traton Group.

“PACCAR is a company with a conservative risk appetite,” Maday stated. “They evaluate from a liability risk perspective and insist on keeping a person in the vehicle.”

At Roush’s facility, workers complete final production steps, upgrading trucks with autonomous driving control systems as well as an array of cameras, LiDAR, and sensors. The plant will produce up to 20 autonomous Level 8 trucks per week in December. Maday suggested they may double this output.

Aurora successfully removed drivers in July. Clients including Hirschbach Motor Lines, McLane Co., and Detmar Logistics are already conducting unmanned operations.

“Our story is now very clear,” Maday said. “We have achieved autonomous driving, we are producing trucks, and there is strong demand both this year and next.”