Aurora Reverses Course, Puts Human Back in Driver’s Seat
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Driverless vehicle developer Aurora Innovation is putting a human back in front of the wheel of big rigs operating in Texas, reversing course less than three weeks after the company began commercial autonomous service there.
The decision to move an “observer” from the rear of the cabin into the driver’s seat was made at the request of Paccar Inc., which manufactured the trucks, Aurora CEO Chris Urmson said May 16 in a post on the company’s website. The trucks will still be operated by the Aurora Driver autonomous system, but the person will be able to intervene if needed.
“We are confident this is not required to operate the truck safely based on the exhaustive testing (covering nearly 10,000 requirements and 2.7 million tests) and analysis that populates our safety case,” Urmson wrote of having a human in the front seat. “Paccar is a longtime partner and, after much consideration, we respected their request.”
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Aurora said on May 1 that it began commercial trucking services in Texas with two fully driverless vehicles, both built by Paccar. It was Aurora’s first commercial self-driving service on public roads. The company plans to expand to El Paso, Texas, and Phoenix by the end of the year.
The May 16 post suggests the companies disagreed about the need for a human to safeguard against issues that might arise in the early days of the commercial driverless service. Paccar requested the change because of certain prototype parts in the trucks, Urmson said.
A Paccar spokesman did not return a request seeking comment.
A short seller report by Bleecker Street Research on May 14 said Aurora had not yet obtained Paccar’s permission to commercialize its trucks with autonomous driving and that the heavy truck manufacturer thinks it will take longer for the technology to be ready.
A spokesperson for Aurora declined to comment on the report.
Aurora has lost key executives over the past year. General Motors Co. said this week that Aurora co-founder and Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson is taking the same title at the automaker. General Counsel Nolan Shenai left around the start of the year, and Yanbing Li, who was senior vice president of engineering, departed Aurora in August to join Datadog Inc.
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