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“We expect to get to 10 trucks operating driverlessly at the end of this year. We’ll kind of ramp them through the course of Q4,” CEO Chris Urmson told analysts. (Aurora Operations Inc.)

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Aurora Innovation posted another substantial loss in the third quarter of 2025 but continues to ramp up operations ahead of launching freight transportation without a driver in the cab in the second quarter of 2026.

Pittsburgh-based self-driving truck technology developer Aurora posted a $201 million loss in the most recent quarter, slightly less than the $208 million loss of the same period 12 months earlier.

Aurora reported revenue totaling $1 million in Q3, compared with zero revenue in the year-ago period.

The most recent quarter’s loss and revenue totals match those of the second quarter of 2025, when Aurora posted its first-ever revenue.

Ahead of the scheduled launch of driverless commercial operations in Q2 2026, Aurora on Oct. 28 revealed its purchase of International Motors LT Series tractors. Aurora has already began testing the rolling stock at a closed test track, it added.

Aurora declined through a spokeswoman to say how many International trucks the company bought.

The tractors will be deployed as part of Aurora’s transportation as a service product line, CEO Chris Urmson said during the company’s Q3 earnings call. Aurora plans to upfit the tractors itself, he added.

“We are ordering them through International, but there is no co-development partnership associated with those,” Chief Financial Officer David Maday told analysts.

We are now open for business on the Fort Worth to El Paso lane, our second commercial lane for driverless operations! For more on our product release, read our Q3 2025 business review and watch the video recap with Aurora CEO Chris Urmson — Aurora (@aurora_inno)

Aurora currently has partnerships with Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Paccar Inc. Those two North American truck manufacturers are installing the Aurora Driver technology package on factory-built tractors.

Volvo Group unit VAS is set to start production of its next generation of VNL Autonomous tractors in the next few weeks, Sasko Cuklev, head of on-road solutions, told attendees of American Trucking Associations’ 2025 Management Conference and Exhibition on Oct. 26.

Aurora currently has five trucks operating and plans to reach hundreds of trucks by the end of 2026 through its partnerships with VAS and Paccar plus the International tractors.

“We expect to get to 10 trucks operating driverlessly at the end of this year. We’ll kind of ramp them through the course of Q4,” Urmson told analysts.

As a result, Aurora has already launched a second driverless route from Fort Worth to El Paso.

In a letter to shareholders accompanying the Q3 result, the company said it was nearing completion of driverless validation for the return El Paso-to-Fort Worth trip as well as an extension to Phoenix.

The Phoenix expansion would add 400 miles to the lane and establish a continuous 1,000-plus-mile, multistate route between Fort Worth and Phoenix, which Aurora said “far exceeds hours-of-service limitations for a traditional driver.”

Future planned expansions include lanes between Dallas and Laredo, and between Dallas and Atlanta, which will extend the driverless interstates 10 and 20 corridor to about 2,000 miles, the company said in the letter.

Customers on the El Paso route include Hirschbach Motor Lines and Russell Transport.

Dubuque, Iowa-based Hirschbach ranks No. 58 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America and No. 4 among refrigerated carriers.

Aurora’s inaugural driverless route was Dallas to Houston, which is currently its only two-way route. Earlier in October, Aurora Driver surpassed 100,000 driverless miles on public roads.

The company opened a terminal in Phoenix in Q2 as well as beginning initial nighttime operations. In August, Aurora unveiled a partnership with technology vendor McLeod Software to create a transportation management system for autonomous trucking operations.

Aurora launched commercial driverless operations but had to add a safety driver after Paccar requested an observer if Aurora was using trucks supplied by the parent company of Peterbilt and Kenworth.

Urmson said during Aurora’s Q2 earnings call that the observer was not required, but Aurora was respecting the prerogative of the truck manufacturer.

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