Aurora Innovation has expanded its commercial driverless trucking operations across Texas, surpassing 100,000 miles on public roads without a safety driver as the company scales its program with Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines. The company's Aurora Driver, an SAE Level 4 autonomous system, now hauls freight between Dallas and Houston on overnight runs, operating without anyone in the cab.
Volvo's VNL Autonomous, paired with the Aurora Driver, is also transporting freight for DHL Supply Chain across Texas corridors connecting Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, and El Paso, with safety drivers still present on those routes as the program works toward full autonomy.
Aurora plans to deploy hundreds of driverless trucks in 2026 using its next-generation hardware platform and has committed to receiving 20 additional Volvo trucks for expanded testing. Kodiak Robotics separately reported doubling its own driverless Class 8 fleet, logging more than 5,200 hours of paid driverless operation across its commercial routes.
The Texas deployments represent the first sustained commercial-scale autonomous trucking operations in the United States, with multiple carriers testing the technology on active freight lanes under real commercial conditions.
Source: GovTech -- https://www.govtech.com/transportation/aurora-self-driving-trucks-expand-texas-freight-operations