Aurora Innovation will start hauling loads in driverless trucks for distribution giant McLane, the latest company to adopt the startup\u2019s autonomous vehicle technology following a multi-year pilot program. <\/p>\n
Under the commercial agreement announced Wednesday, trucks outfitted with Aurora\u2019s self-driving system will be used to transport goods between Dallas and Houston. These trucks will operate autonomously and will not have a human safety driver on board who can take over. However, Aurora will still have what it describes as a \u201chuman observer\u201d sitting in the cab \u2014 who does not operate the vehicle \u2014 per an agreement it has with truck manufacturer Paccar.<\/p>\n
Aurora said it plans to expand to new routes between McLane distribution centers across the U.S. Sun Belt by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
The companies launched a pilot program in 2023 using autonomous trucks with a human safety operator. The pilot eventually expanded to two round-trips daily between Dallas and Houston. <\/p>\n
McLane recently approved moving to driverless operations, which now run seven days a week between the two Texas cities.<\/p>\n
The companies are taking a novel approach to this route, using Aurora\u2019s driverless tech for the long-haul portion of the trip before handing it over to a McLane truck driver who makes local deliveries to customers like fast food restaurants. Aurora said this handoff occurs at the company\u2019s Dallas and Houston terminals located right off the freeway. <\/p>\n
The commercial contract is the latest win for Aurora as it tries to transition from a developer of autonomous trucks to a commercial operator earning money on its driverless routes. And it comes a year after the company launched its commercial self-driving truck service in Texas. Since then, Aurora has landed a commercial agreement to haul frac sand for Detmar Logistics. Last month, Hirschbach Motor Lines agreed to buy 500 Aurora-powered trucks; that agreement, which is outlined in a memorandum of understanding, is expected to close later this year.<\/p>\n
Today, the company operates driverless trucks \u2014 some with a human observer still in the cab \u2014 on routes between Dallas and Houston, Fort Worth and El Paso, El Paso and Phoenix, Fort Worth and Phoenix, and Laredo and Dallas.<\/p>\n
Aurora reports its first-quarter earnings Wednesday after the markets close. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Aurora-Mclane-autonomous-trucks.jpg?resize=1200,750″] Aurora Innovation will start hauling loads in driverless trucks for distribution giant McLane, the latest company to adopt the startup\u2019s autonomous vehicle technology following a multi-year pilot program. Under the commercial agreement announced Wednesday, trucks outfitted with Aurora\u2019s self-driving system will be used to transport goods between Dallas and Houston. These trucks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,62],"class_list":["post-1921365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-techcrunch-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1921365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1921365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1921365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1921365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}