Aurora, the startup founded by former chief engineer for Google freelance project Chris Urmson, is bringing its fleet of test vehicles to Texas. It is the latest company to transfer resources to the Lone Star State, which has quickly become a hotbed for autonomous vehicle testing.
Aurora says it will bring a “small” fleet of vehicles to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the coming weeks. The company tests its autonomous vehicle’s hardware and software on both the Chrysler Pacifica minivans, also popular with Urmson’s former employers in Waymo (née Google), and Class 8 tractor trailers. Aurora says its first commercial service. It will be in trucks “where the market is bigger today, the economy of the unit is better and the level of service requirements is more accommodating.”
“Whether a vehicle moves people or property, an investment in critical elements such as world-class perception, location and movement planning cannot be circumvented,” the company said in a statement. “Our initial focus on the complexities of surface street driving accelerates our ability to handle the toughest aspects of trucks. While this investment takes time up front, its profitability cannot be underestimated. “
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The company has kept its technology a secret until very recently. Aurora recently acquired a manufacturer of LIDAR sensors, debuted its own in-house LIDAR, hired a vice president of hardware, and took an investment from Amazon. She also began giving journalists and members of the evidence rides in their vehicles.
To date, Aurora has raised $ 690 million in funds, and Urmson has been hailed as the “Henry Ford of autonomous vehicles,” thanks to his work helping pioneer Google’s self-driving car initiative. Its co-founders are Sterling Anderson, who helped lead Tesla’s Model X project, and Drew Bagnell, who ran a research lab at Carnegie Mellon and then went to work on autonomous vehicles at Uber. Fiat Chrysler, Hyundai and startup EV Byton are also customers of Aurora. The company raised $ 500 million last year in a financing round led by Amazon.
The company has also had some setbacks. Last year, Volkswagen broke with Aurora after reaching an agreement with Ford to collaborate on electric and autonomous vehicles.
Texas is now one of the top states in the US for AV testing. In addition to Aurora, the state is also hosting Ford / Argo, Uber, autonomous trucking startup TuSimple and Waymo, as well as a remotely operated driverless transportation service at Texas A&M University. Startup AV Drive.ai also operated in the Dallas region before going bankrupt and acquired by Apple.
