Major Advancement: Continental and Aurora Set Sights on Autonomous Trucking in 2027

Continental and Aurora reach partnership milestone by finalizing design of world’s first scalable autonomous trucking system.

(IN BRIEF) Continental and Aurora Innovation have achieved a significant milestone in their partnership to develop autonomous trucking systems. They have completed the design of the Aurora Driver hardware and fallback system, paving the way for production in 2027. This collaboration aims to create a scalable autonomous driving system and industrialized fallback solution, with a roadmap to deploy thousands of autonomous trucks by 2027. The partnership leverages Continental’s automotive expertise and marks a crucial step towards realizing large-scale autonomous trucking for the future.

(PRESS RELEASE) FRANKFURT AM MAIN/ PITTSBURGH, PA, United States, 5-Jan-2024 — /EuropaWire/ — Continental (ETR: CON), a German multinational automotive parts manufacturing company, and Aurora Innovation have marked a significant advancement in their exclusive partnership to enable large-scale autonomous trucking. The companies have successfully completed the blueprint and design of the Aurora Driver hardware and fallback system, a critical step towards realizing their vision. This collaborative effort is aimed at producing an SAE Level 4 autonomous driving system with production slated to commence in 2027. Less than a year after announcing their pioneering partnership, this achievement signals their commitment to high-volume manufacturing of autonomous trucking systems.

Pioneering the World’s First Scalable Autonomous System Introducing new hardware to the automotive market is a complex and time-intensive endeavor, often taking years from inception to production. Recognizing these challenges, Aurora and Continental joined forces to develop reliable, serviceable, and cost-efficient autonomous hardware kits for mass production. This strategic partnership positions Aurora to deploy autonomous trucks at scale, following their initial driverless launch scheduled for late 2024. Leveraging Continental’s automotive expertise, the future Aurora Driver is designed to offer value to customers over one million miles.

Philipp von Hirschheydt, Executive Board member for the Automotive Group Sector at Continental, emphasized, “Technologies for autonomous mobility present the biggest opportunity to transform driving behavior since the creation of the automobile. Achieving this milestone puts us on a credible path to deploy easy-to-service autonomous trucking systems that customers demand.”

Engineering for Maximum Safety Aurora is collaborating with Continental’s top-tier engineering team to develop an industrialized fallback system expected to enter production in 2027. Autonomous vehicles require built-in redundancies to operate safely without a human driver, providing backups in the event of component or sensor failures. The dual engineering approach aims to reduce single points of failure, enhancing overall safety.

Chris Urmson, Co-Founder and CEO at Aurora, noted, “From day one, we knew we’d need to build a strong ecosystem of partners to bring this technology to market safely and at a commercial scale. Finalizing the design of our future hardware is a meaningful step toward making the unit economics of the Aurora Driver compelling and building a business for the long-term.”

The Roadmap to 2027 Production Continental and Aurora are unveiling their four-year partnership roadmap to commercialize thousands of autonomous trucks:

2023 – Blueprint and Design: Detailed system architecture, key requirements, and technical specifications have been established. 2024-2025 – Build and Test: Initial hardware versions for testing will be built at Continental’s facility in New Braunfels, Texas, and across its global manufacturing network. 2026-2027 – Finalization, Start of Production, and Integration: The hardware and fallback system will be industrialized and validated before production begins. Aurora’s trucking manufacturing partners will integrate the hardware into autonomous-ready vehicles. 2027 and beyond – Deployment at Scale: Thousands of trucks integrated with the Aurora Driver will autonomously transport freight across the U.S.

“Entering an exclusive partnership with Aurora was a very good decision as it is an ideal match,” added von Hirschheydt. “Being the industry’s only tier-one supplier with a commitment to industrialize autonomous hardware kits at scale allows us to be at the forefront of and capitalize on this groundbreaking technology.”

Continental will showcase their latest technologies, including their collaboration with Aurora, at CES 2024, highlighting their commitment to advancing autonomous solutions.

For more information, please visit Continental’s booth at CES 2024 and follow Continental CES 2024 highlights on Facebook and Instagram using #ContinentalCES.

Media contact:

Jennifer Weyrich
Media Spokesperson and Topic Manager Autonomous Mobility
Continental Automotive
+49 69760372233
jennifer.weyrich@continental-corporation.com

SOURCE: Continental AG