Aurora Innovations announced the opening of a new Phoenix terminal as well as the addition of nighttime operations for its driverless trucks.
In Aurora’s second quarter business review, the Pittsburgh-based company revealed plans to increase driverless nighttime operations between Dallas and Houston. Aurora claims its driverless technology can detect objects in the dark more than 450 meters away and pedestrians, vehicles and debris 11 seconds sooner than a “traditional driver.”
Aurora said adding nighttime driverless operations will more than double truck utilization potential and shorten delivery times on long-haul routes.
“Efficiency, uptime and reliability are important for our customers, and Aurora is showing we can deliver,” said Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora. “Just three months after launch, we’re running driverless operations day and night and we’ve expanded our terminal network to Phoenix. Our rapid progress is beginning to unlock the full value of self-driving trucks for our customers, which has the potential to transform the trillion-dollar trucking industry.”
🚛 Watch Aurora’s driverless truck navigate highways in real time.
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🔗 https://t.co/p9gYgNGXI0#AutonomousTrucks #AuroraDriver #FreightTech pic.twitter.com/ZM0wxelLAw— Aurora (@aurora_inno) July 31, 2025
Aurora said it opened a Phoenix terminal in June to optimize freight delivery directly to customer endpoints.
“Self-driving trucks can halve transit times, especially on long routes that exceed the 11-hour driving limit for human drivers,” the company said in a news release.
Aurora is currently making autonomous hauls for Hirschbach and Werner between Phoenix and Forth Worth, Texas.
Aurora also said that it now has a three-truck driverless fleet and surpassed 20,000 driverless miles at the end of June. Additionally, the company launched a public livestream of its driverless trucking operations.
“The livestream demonstrates the safety, reliability and growing maturity of the Aurora Driver, offering a first-of-its-kind glimpse into the future of freight transportation,” Aurora said.
Aurora’s journey
The company deployed its first driverless run on April 27 when its autonomous technology hauled a refrigerated trailer for Hirschbach between Dallas and Houston. Urmson sat in the backseat for the haul, and no one was in the driver’s seat.
Just weeks later, however, Aurora announced on May 16 that it was putting a human back in the driver’s seat. Citing a request from Paccar, Aurora said its autonomous operations will continue on I-45 in Texas with a person in the front seat.
“(Paccar) requested we have a person in the driver’s seat because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform,” Aurora CEO Chris Urmson wrote in a blog post published on May 16. “We are confident this is not required to operate the truck safely based on the exhaustive testing and analysis that populates our safety case. Paccar is a longtime partner and, after much consideration, we respected their request and are moving the observer, who had been riding in the back of some of our trips, from the back seat to the front seat.”
Although a human is in the driver’s seat, Aurora previously told Land Line that the “observer” has no role in driving the truck. Even more, an Aurora spokesperson indicated that the person in the driver’s seat would not be required to have a commercial driver’s license.
Autonomous vehicle legislation
A federal proposal, recently introduced by Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif., would preempt state laws pertaining to autonomous commercial vehicles while supporting the deployment and regulation of autonomous vehicles in interstate commerce.
The America Drives Act also includes an exemption for fully autonomous trucks from human-specific requirements, such as hours of service and drug testing, and would allow the use of a flashing, cab-mounted beacon for a disabled commercial vehicle instead of warning triangles.
“By establishing a federal framework for autonomous trucks and empowering the Department of Transportation to set practical regulations, we can safely scale this emerging technology nationwide,” Fong said. LL
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