Aurora’s Truck Production Runs About Six Weeks Behind

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 28 — AuroraAurora Innovation, which hauls freight in trucks with no one behind the wheel, said on Wednesday that it now expects about $9 million of revenue this year, down from the $14 million to $16 million it was still forecasting in July, because its truck production is running about six weeks behind plan. The more than 200 driverless trucks it had expected to have in operation by the end of the year are now due by the end of February.

“While our initial ramp volume over the past month was constrained by material availability, component quality, and issues identified during end-of-line testing, our team moved quickly to address these pre-production bottlenecks,” Aurora wrote in its shareholder letter, over the signature of Chris Urmson, its chief executive. It now expects Roush, the company that fits Aurora’s self-driving system to the trucks, to turn out 20 trucks a week in early December, roughly the pace it had told shareholders in July that Roush would reach in October.The PaceIn July, Aurora said Roush would “ramp to an annual run-rate of 1,000 trucks in October.” Twenty trucks a week for 52 weeks is 1,040 a year, by Daily Cortex’s arithmetic. Roush, in a statement printed in Aurora’s letter, says it is building trucks “16 hours a day.”

On a call with analysts, Mr. Urmson said some of the trouble lay in complex components “where we had material delays,” for which Aurora in some cases had to find another supplier, according to a transcript published by The Motley Fool. David Maday, the chief financial officer, gave wire harnesses as an example of parts moved “to a more capable production supplier,” and said the change was in most cases cost neutral. Aurora’s supply of its own hardware kits, from Fabrinet, is “pacing ahead of the truck build,” he added.

The delay falls on the quarter Aurora had counted on most. Its revenue for the first nine months was $6 million, which leaves about $3 million for the fourth quarter under the new forecast, by Daily Cortex’s arithmetic; in July, Aurora projected that the fourth quarter would contribute “over half of full year revenue.” It expects to use about $250 million of cash in the fourth quarter, more than the $190 million to $220 million a quarter, on average, that it had forecast for 2026. Mr. Maday said spending for the full year would stay within that target, and that the increase was “all related to building up the fleet.”

While our initial ramp volume over the past month was constrained by material availability, component quality, and issues identified during end-of-line testing, our team moved quickly to address these pre-production bottlenecks.

The same afternoon, Aurora raised to $1 billion the amount of stock it may sell on the market over time, adding $754.2 million to the $245.8 million left under its old limit.At the MarketSix banks act as Aurora’s agents, selling shares “from time to time” for commissions of up to 3 percent; they are not required to sell any set amount. Under its first such agreement, from February 2025, Aurora had sold 189.5 million shares for $1.17 billion before costs. Its cash and short-term investments were “over $1 billion” at the end of September, down from “nearly $1.2 billion” at the end of June. Its quarterly report says that money will cover its needs for at least 12 months, but that Aurora “will need to opportunistically raise additional capital.” At Wednesday’s close, $1 billion of stock would be about 196 million new shares, nearly a tenth of the 2 billion outstanding on Sept. 30, by Daily Cortex’s arithmetic.

Aurora’s shares closed Wednesday at $5.09, down 0.59 percent, before the results. They were about $4.80, some 6 percent lower, when after-hours trading ended at 8 p.m. Eastern, and $4.87 in pre-market trading at 5:20 a.m. Thursday, by Yahoo Finance’s figures.

Aurora says demand is strong. “The initial 200 trucks we’ve talked about is fully contracted,” Mr. Urmson said on the call, and the company says it remains “on track to exit 2027 with more than 1,000 driverless trucks in operation.” In September, by its own count, the Aurora Driver passed 500,000 commercial driverless miles since launch, “maintaining 100% on-time delivery.” Its newest commitment, Charger Logistics’ plan to own and run 500 trucks with Aurora’s system, is a non-binding memorandum; Mr. Maday said Aurora fully expects it and one other, for 1,000 trucks in all, to convert into purchases.

Hours before Aurora reported, its rival Kodiak AI announced what it called the first binding commitment by a long-haul carrier to run driverless trucks in its own fleet: DTL Transport, a California company with more than 100 trucks, will put the Kodiak Driver in 75 driverless trucks of its own. DTL will pay a per-mile fee. Deliveries start in 2028, TechCrunch reported. Kodiak did not disclose the deal’s value; TechCrunch estimated, from Kodiak’s 2025 investor presentation, that it could generate at least about $11.2 million a year in recurring revenue once all 75 trucks are delivered.Who Owns the TruckFor its highway customers so far, Kodiak has owned and run the self-driving trucks itself, as a carrier, TechCrunch explains; Aurora is building a driverless fleet of its own. Under “driver as a service,” the customer owns and runs the trucks and pays by the mile for the technology. Both companies mean to move to it.

Kodiak has yet to begin driverless service on public highways; it plans to by the end of the year, hauling for IKEA between Dallas and Houston. Kodiak’s shares closed Wednesday up 16.96 percent, at $1.31.

Alphabet, which reported the same afternoon, said its Other Bets segment, whose revenue comes “primarily from the sale of autonomous transportation services and internet services,” had an operating loss of $2.05 billion in the third quarter, 44 percent more than a year earlier. “We’ve now driven more than 300 million fully autonomous miles,” Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s chief executive, said of Waymo in his published remarks on the earnings call.

The next tests are Aurora’s target of 20 trucks a week at Roush in early December, Kodiak’s planned driverless highway service by the end of the year and Aurora’s target of more than 200 driverless trucks by the end of February.