Independent trucks in Aurora are now driving at night. The next big challenge is rain.

Over the next year, Chris Ormmson, CEO of Ourora Innovation, wants to “open” the US sun, a southern road where its self -driving trucks will carry goods for companies such as Uber charms and Hirschbach Motor Lines.

Aurora, to which she was launched Self -driving truck service without driver This spring, he has already made some progress towards this goal. On Wednesday, the company informed in its message in the second quarter to the shareholders that it now has three self -driving trucks operating commercially between Dallas and Houston and recorded more than 20,000 miles without a driver by the end of June. Its self -driving commercial trucks enjoy a human “observer” in the cabin, and people who are not there to work or interfere, according to the company.

Aurora also opened a station in Phoenix, another material sign for the task of the solar truck transport road. Aurora is experimenting with autonomous truck transport on a 15 -hour road from its station at Fort Worth, Texas to Phoenix to customers, Herchbach and Virner. The stations of the company, which is located one to five miles from the highway, requires truck without driver to deal with exits and surface streets.

But it is the ability of the company to work at night that helps it to push a new area. Aurora said on Wednesday that she had proven health in the ability of her trucks without a driver to move in highways and roads at night. This allows trucks to travel longer distances – and most importantly it is to limit mandatory federal service for traditional human drivers. Drivers are allowed to drive for up to 11 hours over 14 hours; They cannot do that day by day. Truck drivers are also required to take breaks for 10 hours after completing the long distance road.

“The value is longer than lengths – so 600 miles are definitely a good scope, as this is on the limits of what is possible for people,” Oramson told Techcrunch in an interview with him, adding that in the end he hopes that the Aurora trucks bearing a shipment from Miami to California.

Urmson is partially attributed to Lidar, to manage a long -range Aurora, which can discover things in the dark more than 450 meters away, for his ability to work at night. Lidar can determine pedestrians, vehicles and debris up to 11 seconds closer to a traditional driver, according to the company. Aurora has acquired two Lidar since its inception in 2017. The company has bought BlackmoreLidar Startup, which is based in Montana, in May 2019 and technology in 2021.

Now, URMSON and the rest of the Aurora engineers are working to verify the ability of the truck without a driver to work in the rain.

He said: “By the end of the year, we expect to work at night, at night, and in rain – if you cannot drive through the rain, in the end, it is difficult to support these long operations because it rains somewhere.”

Today, the Aurora Development Fleet works in the rain, and given that Ormmson noticed that most of them are wondering why the company does not allow its commercial trucks to do the same. He pointed out that Aurora did not complete the verification of the authenticity of that day, and “so we are not ready to put this selection mark next to her and let her go out there.”

Today, the company monitors the weather on its single commercial path between Dallas and Houston. Ormmson said that if the opposite weather conditions such as rain arises suddenly, these trucks are able to discover this and pull themselves from the road on their own as they will wait to save them.

He said, referring to the company’s focus on driving health at night and in the rain.

Next year, Aurora will focus on expanding the range of the road network, in terms of distances and least. Aurora plans to obtain “dozens of trucks without a driver” working on public roads by the end of the year and “hundreds” by the end of 2026.

All this, from the ability of the driver -free trucks to work at night and rain to open more roads and A with a larger fleet, it will be very important if Ura hopes to reach profitability.

The income gap to the revenue to the network today is a big one. Aurora has reported revenues of one million dollars in the second quarter and a net loss of 201 million, According to its organizational presentation.