Aurora, another leading self-driving technology company, has achieved some major firsts in its own operations recently. As they noted in their extraordinary first-quarter shareholder letter, the company plans to eventually stretch its driverless trucking routes outside of Dallas, aiming for Houston, El Paso, and Phoenix. Aurora’s new strategic expansion is a key move to position themselves for the rapidly changing market landscape ahead. So they are planning for slow revenue growth for the next few years.
In a major leadership shakeup, co-founder and chief product officer Sterling Anderson is departing the startup. His departure signals an important transition for the company, as it now seeks to maintain momentum internally and externally in its driverless trucking efforts. Aurora’s commitment to advancing Aurora’s technology isn’t going anywhere with this transition.
Aurora has clearly made incredible progress in its day-to-day business, deploying two daily driverless trucks already. The company’s goal is to ramp this figure up to “tens of trucks” by late 2025. Aurora has moved with success over 4,000 miles during its public testing period. That’s because only one of their self-driving trucks ever transported a single piece of freight for launch customers Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight.
Aurora accrued $871 in pilot revenue from its drivered commercial freight runs. This represents a 22% increase over last quarter and an astounding 54% increase over the same quarter last year. Looking ahead, the company is looking for very low growth on its top line by 2025. It estimates revenue of several million dollars per year in the medium term.
“This will include driverless revenue, as well as continued pilot revenue…With our deliberate approach to launch, we expect our 2025 revenue to be modest, in the mid single digit millions,” a representative from Aurora noted during the earnings call.
Aurora’s latest quarterly operating expenses equated to $211 million, with $153 million of that going toward research and development. The company burned $142 million in operating cash and another $8 million in CapEx in the first quarter. Currently, Aurora is sitting on close to $1.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents, giving the city plenty of runway for continued success.
Dave Maday, Aurora’s chief financial officer, emphasized the company’s focus on maximizing efficiency. “We’d like to have a high return on asset for every truck that we have, and so we’ll try to drive efficiency to get as many miles on as many trucks as fast as possible,” he stated.
The company has even more ambitious plans to expand saleforce. They project that by 2027 or earlier, customers will increasingly begin purchasing trucks directly from OEMs. In a bid to be the most profitable, Aurora looks to transition drivers-as-a-service to reach “high gross margins.”
Aurora faces the big issues that plague the self-driving industry. Its mission is to accelerate innovation in freight transportation through advanced technology and smart growth practices.
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