AUBURN HILLS, Mich. & PITTSBURGH–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Continental and Aurora Innovation (NASDAQ: AUR) announced they have achieved a key development milestone to commercialize autonomous trucks at scale. The companies have finalized the design and architecture of the future fallback system and hardware of the Aurora Driver. This is an SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Level 4 autonomous driving system that Continental plans to start production of in 2027. The finalized hardware design comes less than a year after the companies entered an industry-first partnership. The partnership is aimed at high-volume manufacturing of autonomous trucking systems.
World’s first serviceable automotive-grade autonomous system at scale
Introducing new hardware to the market is complex and time-intensive. It also often takes years from initial design to the start of production. Recognizing this challenge early on, Aurora teamed up with Continental to jointly develop reliable, serviceable, cost-efficient autonomous hardware kits for mass production. Aurora’s partnership provides a pathway for deploying autonomous trucks at scale. Furthermore, this deployment is scheduled after the initial driverless launch, planned at the end of 2024. Continental’s automotive development and manufacturing expertise will contribute to the design of the future Aurora Driver. Moreover, the goal is to deliver customer value for one million miles.
“Technologies for autonomous mobility present the biggest opportunity. They have the potential to transform driving behavior since the creation of the automobile,” said Philipp von Hirschheydt, Executive Board member for the Automotive Group sector at Continental. “Achieving this milestone puts us on a credible path to deploy easy-to-service autonomous trucking systems that customers demand.”
Joining engineering forces to maximize safety
Aurora is collaborating with Continental’s world-class engineering team. They aim to develop an industrialized fallback system, slated for production in 2027. To operate safely without a human driver, autonomous vehicles require built-in redundancies that provide backups in the rare case a component or sensor fails. One of these redundancies is the fallback system. It is also a specialized secondary computer that can take over operation if a failure occurs in the primary system. This innovative dual engineering approach aims to minimize single points of failure exposure for the main system. It also aims to decrease the vulnerability of the fallback system to such failures.
“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,” said Chris Urmson, Co-Founder and CEO at Aurora. “Finalizing the design of our future hardware is a meaningful step toward making the unit economics of the Aurora Driver compelling. It is also crucial for building a business for the long-term.”
The Path to the Start of Production in 2027
Continental and Aurora are also sharing their four-year partnership roadmap to commercialize thousands of autonomous trucks:
- 2023 – Blueprint and Design: Aurora and Continental align on the detailed system architecture, key requirements, and detailed technical specifications. They collaborate on the Aurora Driver hardware and new high-performance fallback system. This also phase is complete.
- 2024-2025 – Build and Test: With the system architecture in hand, Continental will build initial versions of the hardware for testing at its new facility in New Braunfels, Texas, USA. Moreover, this testing will be conducted across its global manufacturing footprint.
- 2026-2027 – Finalization, Start of Production, and Integration: Continental will industrialize and validate the future Aurora Driver hardware and fallback system before the Start of Production at its facilities. The hardware will leverage a wide spectrum of Continental’s extensive automotive product portfolio. This includes sensors, automated driving control units (ADCU), high-performance computers (HPC), telematics units, and more. Aurora’s trucking manufacturing partners will integrate the hardware and fallback system into autonomous-ready vehicles upon shipment. During this phase, the companies will also develop a service playbook and maintenance network for Aurora’s customers.
- 2027 and beyond – Deployment at Scale: Thousands of trucks integrated with the Aurora Driver are ready to autonomously haul freight across the U.S.
“We made a very good decision by entering an exclusive partnership with Aurora, as it represents an ideal match,” von Hirschheydt added. “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 groundbreaking technology. Moreover, we can capitalize on this innovative advancement.”
Continental and Aurora at CES 2024
Continental will showcase its latest technologies at a structure exhibit in Central Plaza across from the Las Vegas Convention Center. This also includes its work with Aurora. Moreover, the exhibition will run from Tuesday, January 9 through Friday, January 12. An invitation-only media event has been scheduled for January 9. Please contact Mary Arraf for details.
News related to Aurora –
