Aurora Earns First Revenue in a Quarter of Milestones
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Aurora Innovation posted its first-ever revenue in the second quarter of 2025, but still reported a loss of $201 million, .
The Pittsburgh-based automated driving developer during the quarter launched commercial driverless operations, added a terminal in Phoenix and began initial nighttime operations in partnership with Werner Enterprises and Hirschbach Motor Lines.
The Q2 loss contributed to a full-year loss of $748 million. The Q2 result was compounded by $231 million in expenses, with $190 million of that going toward research and development.
As of June 30, Aurora had $1.3 billion of cash and short-term investments on hand. It raised $331 million through the sale of 57 million shares during the quarter, leaving it in a stronger position than earlier in the year, Chief Financial Officer David Maday said during its quarterly earnings call. Aurora at the end of Q1 had slightly less than $1.2 billion cash on hand on expenses of $211 million. At the end of Q4 2024, Aurora had a little more than $1.2 billion cash on hand.
Aurora went public in August 2024, raising $483 million for working capital and increased industry observers’ visibility into a key player in a segment missing a substantial chunk of its earliest pioneers.
Quarterly Cash Burn Continues
Developing autonomous vehicles is a notoriously cash-intensive endeavor. For the remainder of 2025, CEO Chris Urmson during the call told analysts, “We continue to expect quarterly cash use of $175 million to $185 million on average.”
That said, he also stressed that the company is now serving customers.
“Today, we’re no longer selling an idea, we’re delivering a real product that will ultimately transform our customers’ businesses,” Urmson said. “We’re seeing qualified leads surge to support our scaling ambitions in 2026 and 2027.”
He added, “The second quarter marked a pivotal moment in transportation history. Aurora opened a new chapter with the launch of the first driverless commercial trucking operations on public roads in the U.S.” Aurora began Q2 running one truck and ended the quarter operating three.
“While we added a front seat observer at the request of a partner given certain prototype parts in their base vehicle, it’s crucial to note that the Aurora Driver remains fully responsible for all driving tasks with no interventions needed,” said Urmson.
Aurora in May said it had launched the first commercial driverless freight service in the U.S., operating semis between Dallas and Houston without a driver at the wheel.
Less than three weeks later, however, humans were back in the cab after truck maker Paccar requested the change, which comprised an “observer” in the rear of the cab.
Urmson said the observer was not required, but Aurora was respecting the prerogative of the truck manufacturer, parent company of Peterbilt and Kenworth.
During Paccar’s Q2 earnings call on July 22, CEO Preston Feight declined to provide any details to analysts on when the truck maker might change its mind about the observer.
“We always operate at Paccar with safety being our most fundamental foundational principle,” Feight said. “It will remain as a True North for us. Having a ‘driver in’ seems like the smartest idea and that’s … how we’re operating the trucks.”
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Urmson said during the Aurora call that Paccar recently completed the first prototypes of a scalable autonomy-enabled truck platform, and that the trucks were in testing at the truck maker’s facilities.
But Paccar offered no timeline for when they’ll be ready.
“We don’t ever discuss when we’re going to go to production with things,” Feight said. “When things are fully [production-ready] — validated, completed production — then that’s when we have that conversation.”
Aurora also has a partnership with Volvo Autonomous Solutions. Urmson said Aurora has received updated versions of an automated Volvo VNL truck with integrated Aurora Driver technology for on-road testing. Aurora expects to receive 20 of the trucks by the end of 2025, he said.
Two further generations of Aurora Driver hardware are under development via its partnership with German manufacturer Continental and chip manufacturer Nvidia. The deal, launched in January, aims to scale up autonomous truck development.
Aurora expects mass manufacturing of self-driving trucks incorporating Aurora Driver to begin in 2027.
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