Continental and Aurora Join Forces to Tackle Driver Shortage

Continental and Aurora Innovation entered an exclusive partnership to deliver the first commercially scalable generation of Aurora’s flagship integrated hardware and software system, the Aurora Driver.

The organizations will jointly design, develop, validate, deliver, and service the scalable autonomous system for the trucking industry.

The system is expected to be available for carriers and commercial fleet operators across the U.S. and to help reduce costs to facilitate broader adoption.

Aurora Driver Gears Up with Continental's Decades of Expertise

Continental plans to capitalize on its experience in systems development to industrialize the Aurora Driver, enhancing automotive safety and reliability.

The company will provide the entire hardware set for the driver, including a new fallback system. In the rare event of a failure in the primary autonomy system, the fallback system is designed to ensure uninterrupted autonomous driving until the vehicle reaches a safe position.

Furthermore, Continental will oversee the complete lifecycle of the autonomous hardware kits for the Aurora Driver, from manufacturing to decommissioning.

Production is slated to commence in 2027, aligning with the anticipated launch of Aurora Horizon, the subscription trucking service powered by the Aurora Driver, scheduled for 2024.

“Delivering autonomous vehicles at scale has the potential to dramatically transform modern transportation, bringing new accessibility, safety and efficiency to the movement of goods and people,” said Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO at Aurora. “Continental's legacy in development and industrialization of automated driving systems, combined with its commitment to transform transportation make it an ideal partner for Aurora. Their depth of expertise will be pivotal to scaling Aurora’s autonomous trucking service, Aurora Horizon.”

Autonomous Trucking Takes Center Stage

In this first-of-its-kind partnership, Continental will be responsible for the autonomous driving system kits, which will leverage a wide spectrum of Continental’s extensive automotive product portfolio from sensors, automated driving control units, high-performance computers, telematics units and more, to the complete fallback system which covers the full chain of effects.

Continental will integrate these hardware components into pods supplied to Aurora’s vehicle manufacturing partners. This will advance the product offering for autonomous trucking customers.

Frank Petznick, head of the Autonomous Mobility Business Area, which will implement Continental's contributions to the partnership with Aurora: “Continental and Aurora will bring the commercial freight market, limited by supply chain constraints in many markets of the world, to a new service level. The first commercially scalable autonomous trucking system provides exciting opportunities for passenger transportation in the coming years and paves the way for broad adoption of autonomous mobility.”

Continental and Aurora have signed an exclusive partnership to realize autonomous trucking systems.

Continental and Aurora Targeting Driver Shortage with Scalable Solutions

Continental and Aurora have established a hardware-as-a-service partnership centered on mileage-driven metrics to deliver secure, dependable, and commercially adaptable autonomous driving systems to clients via the Aurora Horizon platform.

Developed to enhance the human driver supply, the Aurora Horizon platform ensures a safer, more reliable, predictable, and cost-effective driver service.

This service empowers carriers and fleet operators to optimize vehicle fleets, scale their business as needed, and address the prevailing driver shortage.

The collaborative effort between Continental and Aurora intends to extend this scalable solution to Aurora's vehicle manufacturing partners. Continental's components are anticipated to be manufactured and assembled in its recently constructed facility in New Braunfels, Texas, as well as in other locations within the company's global footprint.

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