Mass production of Aurora (AUR.US) unmanned trucks has been postponed again: this year's target of 200 vehicles fell through, revenue was broken in 2026, and it is expected to get back on track in 2027

The Zhitong Finance App learned that when announcing quarterly results on Wednesday EST, the autonomous truck company Aurora Innovation Inc. (AUR.US) stated that it is not expected to achieve this year's production target, but indicated that progress is expected to resume in 2027.

Aurora said supplier issues have constrained the company from reaching its target of 200 trucks on the road by February next year. This means Aurora will not be able to meet its 2026 revenue target.

Chief Financial Officer David Maday said in an interview that the supplier issue has been resolved, and the current production schedule is expected to achieve the previously announced target of 1,000 trucks on the road by the end of 2027. Looking ahead, demand from nine different customers has exceeded the company's carrying capacity.

“We really think we are at a commercial inflection point,” Maday said in an interview along the truck assembly line at the Roush Enterprises Inc. plant, which is responsible for the final assembly of Aurora trucks, in a suburb of Detroit.

Aurora's goal is to have 30,000 trucks on the road by 2030, and as this goal gets closer, the company plans to change its business model. The company will no longer own and operate its own autonomous trucks to serve customers; instead, freight customers will own their own fleets. According to Maday, the company should achieve positive cash flow by 2028, when revenue increases and book assets decrease.

To achieve this goal, Aurora will have to raise funds. The company currently has a credit line and does not rule out additional share financing.

Since going public in 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company, Aurora has experienced a series of twists and turns. In 2022, as investors lost interest in funding autonomous driving companies, the company implemented cost reduction measures. At the time, CEO Chris Urmson sent a memo to employees outlining various ways to keep cash. Urmson even proposed the idea of selling the company to tech giants like Microsoft (MSFT.US) or Apple (AAPL.US).

The company struggled to overcome the trough and completed a round of financing in 2024, but at the same time postponed the fully unmanned operation node for commercial trucks until 2025. Co-founder Sterling Anderson left his job in May last year to become the Chief Product Officer of General Motors (GM.US).

Aurora's stock price once surpassed $17 after listing, and is currently around $5 per share.

Aurora's path to mass production has not been easy. The company removed safety officers from the truck last year, but the partner car company PCAR.US (PCAR.US) requires that the driver be kept in the car due to considerations. Currently, the company is cooperating with Paca to completely eliminate in-car safety officers on the next generation of models. Its current trucks are manufactured by International Motors, a subsidiary of the German Traton Group.

“Paka is a company with a conservative risk appetite,” Maday said. “They assessed it from a liability risk perspective and insisted on keeping people in the car.”

At Roush's factory, workers completed the final production steps to upgrade the truck's driverless control system and a set of cameras, lidars, and sensors. The plant will produce up to 20 self-driving Class 8 trucks per week in December. Maday said they are likely to double production capacity.

Aurora successfully removed the driver in July. Customers including Hirschbach Motor Lines, McLane Co. and Detmar Logistics are running driverless operations.

“The logic of our story is clear now,” Maday said. “We have achieved driverless driving, we are producing trucks, and there is plenty of demand this year and next.”