Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA Partner to Deploy Driverless Trucks at Scale
Long-term manufacturing deal will power thousands of driverless trucks with NVIDIA DRIVE Thor
Aurora (NASDAQ:AUR), Continental, and NVIDIA today announced a long-term strategic partnership to deploy driverless trucks at scale, powered by the next-generation NVIDIA DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chip (SoC). NVIDIA's DRIVE Thor and DriveOS will be integrated into the Aurora Driver, an SAE L4 autonomous driving system that Continental plans to mass-manufacture in 2027.
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Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA Partner to Deploy Driverless Trucks at Scale (Photo Credit: Aurora and Volvo)
Industry-first partnership to scale driverless trucks
"Delivering one driverless truck will be monumental. Deploying thousands will change the way we live," said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder at Aurora. "NVIDIA is the market leader in accelerated computing, and they'll strengthen our ecosystem of partners and our ability to deliver safe and reliable driverless trucks to our customers at scale."
"Developing, industrializing, and manufacturing powerful self-driving hardware at commercial scale requires unique and unparalleled expertise," said Aruna Anand, President & CEO, Automotive, Continental North America. "Our industry-first collaboration with Aurora and NVIDIA to deliver driverless trucks positions Continental at the forefront of this cutting-edge technology and will drive value to our business."
"The combination of NVIDIA's automotive-grade DRIVE Thor platform with Aurora's advanced self-driving trucking technology and Continental's manufacturing and integration expertise is set to help drive the future of autonomous trucking, helping make roads safer while driving up operational efficiency," said Rishi Dhall, vice president of automotive at NVIDIA.
Delivering safe, highly performant and reliable driverless trucks
Aurora – a leader in autonomous trucks – is in the final stages of validating the Aurora Driver for driverless operations on public roads. The Aurora Driver is equipped with a powerful computer and sensors, including lidar, radar, and cameras, enabling it to safely operate at highway speeds. Verifiable AI enables the Aurora Driver to quickly adapt to new operating domains while being validated through Aurora's Safety Case, an essential tool for regulatory trust and public acceptance. Aurora plans to launch its driverless trucking service in Texas in April 2025.
NVIDIA will power the primary computer of the Aurora Driver with a dual NVIDIA DRIVE Thor SoC configuration that runs DriveOS. DRIVE Thor, built on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, is designed to accelerate inference tasks critical for autonomous vehicles to understand and navigate the world around them. As Continental and Aurora prepare to manufacture self-driving hardware at scale in 2027, production samples of DRIVE Thor are coming in the first half of 2025.
Continental – one of the world's largest automotive suppliers – is developing a reliable, serviceable, cost-efficient generation of the Aurora Driver hardware, specifically for high-volume manufacturing. The company is also developing a specialized independent secondary system that can take over operation if a failure occurs in the primary Aurora Driver computer. With start of production planned for 2027, Continental will test prototypes of the future hardware kit in the coming months. Continental will then integrate DRIVE Thor with DriveOS into the primary Aurora Driver computer at its manufacturing facilities and ship the full hardware kit to Aurora's truck OEM partners for integration into customers' trucks.
Continental and Aurora at CES 2025
To learn more about this news and partnership, please visit Continental's booth at CES. Continental is located at LVCC Central Plaza, Booth Space CP-715 & CP-721, where it will be showcasing its latest progress with Aurora.
On display will be an early prototype of the Aurora Driver hardware by Continental and the Volvo VNL Autonomous—the flagship model of Volvo's autonomous technology platform that is designed to support diverse use cases, advanced technologies, and seamlessly integrate with the Aurora Driver. An invitation-only media event has been scheduled for January 7.
About Aurora
Aurora (NASDAQ:AUR) is delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly to make transportation safer, increasingly accessible, and more reliable and efficient than ever before. The Aurora Driver is a self-driving system designed to operate multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles, and underpins Aurora's driver-as-a-service products for trucking and ride-hailing.
About Continental
Continental develops pioneering technologies and services for sustainable and connected mobility of people and their goods. Founded in 1871, the technology company offers safe, efficient, intelligent and affordable solutions for vehicles, machines, traffic and transportation. In 2023, Continental generated sales of €41.4 billion and currently employs around 200,000 people in 56 countries and markets.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such statements include, but are not limited to, the benefits of integrating AI into Aurora's product, the safety benefits of Aurora's technology and product, Aurora's ability to achieve certain milestones around, and realize the potential benefits of, the development, manufacturing, scaling, and commercialization of the Aurora Driver and related services, including relationships and anticipated benefits with partners, and on the timeframe Aurora expects or at all, the market opportunity and the regulatory tailwinds and framework in which Aurora operates. These statements are based on management's current assumptions and are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause Aurora's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Information regarding the foregoing and additional risks are described in the "Risk Factors" section of Aurora's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 15, 2024, as amended by Aurora's Form 10-K/A filed with the SEC on May 24, 2024, and other filings that Aurora makes with the SEC from time to time. All forward-looking statements reflect Aurora's beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this press release. Aurora undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.
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