A fleet management system has been developed by Aurora Innovation that can be used to improve operations for the startup.
During its first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, Aurora presented investors with a series of milestones on its path to commercializing its trucking product, Aurora Horizon, and launching its ride-hail product, Aurora Connect.
The company says that once Aurora reaches commercialization, it will give customers access to real-time data of their vehicles, such as health, status and current location, as well as real-time alerts about things like vehicle status, ETA, traffic conditions, updates to missions and major weather events The ability to schedule, dispatch, monitor and coordinate fleets is already being used by Aurora.
In the event of a tire with low air pressure, an alert will be sent to the fleet manager, who can then take the vehicle to a nearby service center.
Currently, the startup has three active commercial pilots, all of which involve hauling freight autonomously in Texas, but it is not yet clear if the company is using Beacon with those clients. The learnings from those partnerships helped inform the creation of the company.
This level of insight into and control over the real-time location, status, and objectives of autonomously driving vehicles will help Aurora's customers maximize their utilization and responsiveness to shifting conditions and network demands.
In the event that an Aurora Driver-powered vehicle encounters a situation that it hasn't run into before and can't figure out, like getting pulled over by law enforcement, Beacon provides remote support.
Eventually, as the company approaches commercial deployment, Beacon is meant to be offered alongside the Aurora Driver, the company's self-driving system, as a product that can be incorporated via the existing systems of carriers, fleets and networks, according to Aurora.
Aurora Q1 2022.
During the first quarter of the year, Aurora had an operating loss of $143 million, which is down from $192 million during the same quarter last year. The net loss this quarter was $77 million, down from $189 million last year.
The company ended the quarter with $42 million incollaboration revenue for development work associated with the company's agreement with Toyota. In March, the company unveiled its test fleet of six Toyota Sienna robotaxis, which will be tested in Texas on high-speed routes.
As a pre-revenue company, Aurora declined to give any guidance, allowing the company to finish its call in about 30 minutes.
The company will use the cash and short-term investments to continue to develop the Aurora Driver for scaled commercial deployment, focusing on getting its trucking product to market first. The company expects to get an additional $52 million in cash from Toyota over the remainder of the year, which should help it to develop its ride-sharing product further, according to Richard Tame, Aurora's CFO.
Aurora shares are currently trading at $4.10 at the time of this writing, up slightly after hours.
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