Aurora Innovation, Inc. (AUR) Earnings

Management highlights

2026 is the year Aurora begins to scale. Strategic investments are fueling momentum. On the cusp of launching second generation commercial hardware kit on driverless trucks. Announced Hirschbach selection to scale autonomous fleet with intent to own and operate 500 trucks. Continued regulatory momentum with California enabling autonomous trucking. Projected serviceable addressable market of 60 billion vehicle miles traveled by 2028. Focused on expanding driverless network, finalizing software release, validating second-generation commercial hardware kit. Aurora driver surpassed 370,000 driverless miles with 100% on-time performance and zero Aurora driver-attributed collisions. Forthcoming software release and commercial hardware kit engineered for reliability. Second generation commercial hardware kit expected to drive 50-plus percent reduction in hardware costs. Established hardware and vehicle platform roadmap with second quarter launch of second generation commercial hardware kit on new fleet of trucks. Made progress on third generation commercial hardware kit with Amovio and NVIDIA. Announced Aurora Works commitment to invest in workforce development.

Guidance

We expect 2026 revenue of $14 to $16 million, up 400% year over year at the midpoint. Revenue will be back and loaded, with the fourth quarter projected to contribute over half of full year revenue. We anticipate exiting the year with more than 200 driverless trucks in operation, which translates to approximately $80 million in revenue on a run rate basis for our transportation as a service business. We continue to expect quarterly cash use of approximately $190 to $220 million on average throughout 2026. This includes approximately $150 million in anticipated full-year capital expenditures, primarily attributed to our capacity plan. We continue to expect 2026 to represent peak capital spend and capital expenditures declining significantly in 2027 as we transition to our driver-as-a-service model and hardware-as-a-service structure with Immovio.

Segment performance

First quarter 2026 revenue totaled $1 million across driverless and vehicle operator supervised commercial loads. The Aurora driver achieved a 10% sequential increase in revenue from the fourth quarter of 2025. First quarter operating loss, including stock based compensation, totaled $244 million. Excluding stock-based compensation, R&D totaled $159 million, SG&A was $34 million, and cost of revenue was $6 million. We used approximately $159 million in operating cash during the first quarter of 2026, and capital expenditures totaled $25 million. We expect 2026 revenue of $14 to $16 million, up 400% year over year at the midpoint. Revenue will be back and loaded, with the fourth quarter projected to contribute over half of full year revenue. We anticipate exiting the year with more than 200 driverless trucks in operation, which translates to approximately $80 million in revenue on a run rate basis for our transportation as a service business.

Risks & headwinds

Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed, projected, or implied during this call. In particular, those described in our risk factors included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and other documents filed with the SEC, as well as the current uncertainty and unpredictability in our business, the markets, and economy. Additional information will also be set forth in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026.

Analyst Q&A

• Q: In light of the growing commercial momentum that you're seeing, have you seen any meaningful acceleration in inbound interest from prospective fleet partners? And also, as you're beginning to scale, How are you navigating price discovery? Has there been any resistance from customers regarding the per mile rate or is the value currently offsetting any cost concerns?

  A: Thanks, George. Appreciate you. Appreciate the question. We continue to have really exciting conversations with various customers. You know, we've talked in the past about each time we kind of check off progress, we see it become more real in the eyes of customers, and that leads to an increase in the conversations we have. We've got an exciting funnel, and we'll share more as we get through that. I don't think we can talk specifically about pricing on this. Obviously, there's a lot of competitive elements around that, but we have very, you know, fruitful conversations with folks. You know, of course, they want to pay nothing for it, and we'd like to charge them more for it. So, you know, every one of those conversations is, of course, a negotiation. I don't know, Davis, you'd add more. Yeah, I think... The customers themselves have been giving us really good and direct feedback. At the end of the day, the value proposition that we're discussing has still resonated quite well. You're going to argue a little bit about the fringes, but the growing cost of drivers is undeniable, the indirect costs associated with it. And fuel costs are really high right now. We're providing a 15% reduction on that, that translates to real dollars, right? That's roughly 15, 16 cents per mile in today's, you know, marketplace. So the value proposition does resonate quite well. And, you know, we're confident that we're going to be able to grow the business and achieve our profit objectives.

• Q: Given your recent autonomous halls, are you encountering any technical bottlenecks as you transition from pilot to more of a consistent operational cadence? And how have your engineering teams mitigated any constraints that have been out there on the system?

  A: Yeah, there's nothing that we're seeing that's particularly surprising. It's stuff that's been in our roadmap for a while. So we're continuing to improve that. This new release that is going to land with the second generation hardware really is about making sure that we have a robust platform that's reliable and meets customer needs. Increasing the amount of rain we can handle, dealing with more complicated construction that we need to deal with on freeways. That's the kind of thing that's going to set us up to be able to scale really well.

• Q: Relative to the target of 200 trucks by the end of the year, how many are in operation today? And then separately on the Hirschbach MOU, just hoping for a little bit more color, like what needs to happen to convert this from an MOU to a committed contract? And do you have any color on how many of those 500 trucks you expect to deliver in 27 and how long you think it takes to get to the full?

  A: So on the 200 trucks, when we talk about 200 trucks, we're talking about driverless trucks operating by the end of the year. Today, we're running about a handful of them. Of the vehicles that will make up those 200 trucks that are operating driverlessly, I think we own 25 of them now, and they're in various stages of upfit and preparation. So that's kind of where we stand on getting to those 200 trucks over the course of the year. We expect, you know, we're doing work in Q2 to prepare Roush to scale, and they'll really start scaling, getting towards that 20 trucks per week production rate in Q3. With Hirschbach, I don't know there's a whole lot we can share there. We're really excited about they've been one of our longest-term partners and customers. And, you know, to George's question earlier about the value customers see, You don't get a company like Hirschbach signing up for an MOU unless they see real opportunity for it to complement the drivers they have in their fleet today. It's a 500 truck deal over 27 and 28 is our expectation. We expect it to turn into hundreds of millions of miles and hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. And we expect to get to closure on that this year. Yeah. And he's got one other thing, one other thing on the 200 trucks. I just, so there's no confusion. We, we, we, we already have, uh, you know, commitment and, uh, order slots for the, for the entire 200 trucks. So there is no question about the truck availability. It's just when we bring them into, uh, start the upfit process and we build out our capacity plan.

• Q: David, do you, I think you talked about last quarter, if you get to the 80 million run rate of revenue, that'll be gross profit breakeven. Is that still the case? And then on the California front, when do you expect to start operations there?

  A: Well, relative to the gross profit breakeven, that is still our target for sure. The $80 million is one element of that. There are some things that we need to do on the cost side of that equation, which are equally as important, which is part of our plan. And so we're still targeting it. It's not formal guidance, but we are targeting it, and we are going to be working really hard to be able to achieve that target. I'll let Chris talk a little bit about California. So California, first, we're really excited that California is taking a step forward with this. We've been in conversation with them literally for years, and we're just excited to see them put out the regulations and give us certainty on how we can start to build our business there. We don't have set time for when we'll begin operating in California. We have to go through the permitting process with them to do that, but the team is already working on that, and we'll share more when we can.

• Q: Chris, you said in your letter that you and PACCAR are jointly defining the path to scalable launch on their assembly lines. Do you have an understanding, and if so, can you tell us kind of what this path looks like from a catalyst or a timing standpoint?

  A: Yeah, I can't share timing, of course. What I can share is that we're aligning around the third-generation platform or hardware kit from Aurora that we're working with Amovio on. We've shared in the past that we expect that to come into production in the back half of 27. And so, you know, we continue to have conversations with PACCAR. We continue to work with them closely and look forward to offering customers who'd like to have the Aurora driver on a Peterbilt that option.

• Q: Obviously truck rates appear to be going up quite meaningfully, and there are some who think we may be on the cusp of a generational upcycle here. Are you seeing any increased interest from customers or carriers who may be concerned about a driver shortage? And Is this an opportunity for you to maybe revise your pricing strategy, or are you just selling this as, hey, there's more savings for your customers if they switch to autonomous in the next few years?

  A: Yeah, so I'll say that first, I'm not savvy enough to predict exactly what will happen with the market here, but it does feel like there's a lot of factors that are contributing to what will be increased freight rates going forward. you know, we're really focused on delivering value to our customers. Uh, we ultimately expect to get paid for that value. And so if we're contributing more value would ultimately expect to, uh, to be compensated for that. Uh, but right now we're focused on making sure that the folks who've been with us as partners and customers and, you know, get an opportunity to benefit from that and build their business. So I don't Dave anything that you'd add. No, I think that's right. I will say that the, uh, the interest has been picking up a lot over the last six months, frankly, the number of inbounds that we're getting has been just increasing dramatically, Robbie. So we're very excited about that. Part of it is just we're out there and people can see and experience it more than they've ever had before. Part of it is the market is starting to have some positive signs that feel like they're more sustainable and that has people more interested in thinking about their long-term. I think from the pricing side, the one thing that I would say is we believe that the pricing at that $0.85 plus kind of range will enable us to be very successful, and it will support broad-scale adoption for our customers. And I think we look at it not so much as how would we maximize that next quarter, and I think about it as how will we, you know, build a plan for the next several years. And we want to make sure that we have equally as much of that long-term focus and support for customer adoption as we can.

• Q: Chris, you talked about Hirschbach. You know, what are they seeing – Are they seeing something different in terms of absolute number of miles driven, or is it just a unique decision on their end that sort of has them pull the trigger to move from a trial to a truck order? And I guess, do you have other partners that you've been working with over time that are similar miles, and it's just sort of come down to a unique decision on their end? I just kind of want to get a sense of what helped them get over the edge there.

  A: I think, first, it's important to recognize that there's a distribution of customers, right? There's going to be folks who are first movers, and there's going to be others who are fast followers. You know, we've, you know, Hirschbach has had a lot of experience with us. The leadership team there, we've been able to build trust with over time. And so, you know, we're excited for them to pull the trigger. We do expect others will follow, you know, and we'll just continue to demonstrate value. And, you know, frankly, right now, we're pretty supply constrained. And we look forward to unlocking that supply over the course of this year and certainly in 27 as we bring the Amovio Hardware Kit online. The other thing that I would add on Hirschbach, they have been with us for quite some time, and they don't look at this just as a business decision. They are really looking at this as like, in their words, the quality of life investment for their people, right? This is to help support their people and get them to the routes in the working environment that will improve their quality of life while we handle the quote-unquote, the less desirable, the longer haul route to keep you away very far. So they've been very forward-leaning on thinking about their driver's long-term quality of life. And so I think that's something that's very important to them, and certainly they care a lot about their drivers.