by Future Transport-News
Published
20 Oct 2023
Tags
Aurora
Autonomous Vehicles
Suppliers Aurora
Aurora and Continental: Building a Powerhouse Ecosystem to Deliver the Aurora Driver at Scale
A few self-driving trucks on the road may reveal wondrous, innovative new technology. But to deliver broad societal benefit—making our roads safer, our supply chains faster and more efficient, and ultimately better access to mobility and goods for everyone—you need a critical ingredient: scale.
Scaling makes innovation accessible—and access drives societal transformation.
Today, Aurora Driver-powered class 8 trucks haul commercial freight on public roads in Texas. But this progress is but a taste of its potential. To truly revolutionize the transportation space, the self-driving industry needed a force multiplier to scale this technology broadly.
And Aurora has found that partner. Recently, we announced a long-term partnership with Continental—a global technology company and automotive supplier—to bring self-driving technology on a commercial scale by jointly developing, manufacturing, and servicing future generations of the Aurora Driver’s hardware. Continental will also contribute a new fallback system.
Our partnership will break down into the following core responsibilities:
Until this point, the emerging self-driving industry has had the twin challenge of both developing the technology, while also trying to scale it in a meaningful way. Aurora’s partnership with Continental addresses both these issues through an innovative industry-first approach.
Traditional business models operate with assembly manufacturers paying for parts as they go. Continental and Aurora’s partnership will operate as a hardware-as-a-service business model. This means both Continental and Aurora’s revenue will come from the miles driven by our product.
In other words, we’re both invested in our customers’ success—and we all win when our vehicles’ wheels are moving. This partnership represents a massive validation in Continental, Aurora, and the future of autonomous vehicles.
Today’s freight industry is strained by a combination of network inefficiency, labor shortages, collisions, hours of service limitations, and driver turnover. We believe self-driving technology can address these challenges.
The partnership between Aurora and Continental marks a powerful statement in our commitment to building a product based on the needs of our freight and future ride-hailing customers.
Together, we plan to create a product with tremendous value over the coming years: safe, efficient, and reliable autonomous trucking that will improve road safety, increase fleet utilization, and reduce operating costs. And over time, we’ll leverage this remarkable technology to strengthen the passenger mobility space, increasing safety, accessibility, and comfort.
Continental brings more than 150 years of industrial powerhouse experience, with a massive automotive product portfolio. Additionally, Aurora’s work with some of the most reputable auto manufacturers in the world ensures that customers will have the highest levels of support, expertise, and focus on safety.
Together, we can transform the transportation ecosystem, make our roads safer, and pave the way for an autonomous future.
This article was originally published by Aurora.
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