October 26, 2026 - Aurora Gets More Truck Orders

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 26, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. 

Aurora Innovation is currently the leader in deploying automated long-haul trucks in North America, with about two dozen in operation as of the third quarter of 2026. By the end of this year, the Pittsburgh-based company is targeting 200 trucks operating routes across Texas and several other southern states. The trucks currently in operation are owned and operated by Aurora as part of a transportation-as-a-service model. Freight carriers drop off trailers at an Aurora depot, and they are transported to the destination. However, this is only intended to be a proof-of-concept model, and Aurora only plans to operate about 500 trucks for this service. 

In 2027, automotive supplier Aumovio will begin deliveries of the automated driving hardware kit it has developed with Aurora to truck manufacturers, including Volvo and Paccar, for assembly line fitment rather than the retrofitting done on the current trucks. Those trucks will be sold to customers who will pay Aurora for a driver-as-a-service model. The current transportation-as-a-service is estimated to be priced at $2/mile, while carriers that own the trucks will pay Aurora about $0.85/mile to use the Aurora Driver system and back-end services. Earlier this year, Hirschbach signed an MOU for 500 Aurora-powered trucks, and this week, Charger Logistics signed a similar agreement for another 500. Both companies are already using transportation as a service to haul loads, and the new trucks are expected to be delivered in 2027 and 2028. 

Aurora is targeting having about 30,000 trucks powered by its automated driving system on US roads by 2030. That would amount to about 1% of the approximately 3 million long-haul trucks in operation currently.