Texas Border Business
Texas Border Business
LAS VEGAS – In a landmark move toward fully autonomous freight transportation, Aurora (NASDAQ: AUR), Continental, and NVIDIA have announced a long-term strategic partnership to deploy driverless trucks at scale, leveraging NVIDIA’s cutting-edge DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chip (SoC). The next-generation SoC will power Aurora’s SAE Level 4 autonomous driving system, known as the Aurora Driver, which Continental plans to mass-manufacture starting in 2027.
“Developing, industrializing, and manufacturing powerful self-driving hardware at commercial scale requires unique and unparalleled expertise,” said Aruna Anand, President & CEO, Automotive, Continental North America. “Our industry-first collaboration with Aurora and NVIDIA positions Continental at the forefront of this transformative technology and will deliver tremendous value to our business.”
Rishi Dhall, vice president of automotive at NVIDIA, added: “The combination of NVIDIA’s automotive-grade DRIVE Thor platform with Aurora’s advanced autonomous technology and Continental’s manufacturing prowess sets the stage for a new era in driverless trucking. This collaboration will help improve road safety and boost logistics efficiency.”
Aurora, a leading force in autonomous trucking, is nearing the final stages of validating the Aurora Driver for public road operations. The system combines advanced computing with a suite of sensors—lidar, radar, and cameras—enabling safe navigation at highway speeds. It also employs Verifiable AI, allowing it to adapt to diverse road environments while undergoing rigorous validation through Aurora’s proprietary Safety Case framework, a key element in gaining regulatory and public trust.
Aurora is slated to launch its first commercial driverless trucking service in Texas in April 2025.
NVIDIA will supply the primary computing platform for the Aurora Driver, using a dual DRIVE Thor SoC configuration running DriveOS. Based on the powerful NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, DRIVE Thor accelerates AI inference tasks that enable autonomous trucks to interpret and react to real-world driving conditions. Production samples of DRIVE Thor are expected in the first half of 2025.
As one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, Continental is engineering a reliable, cost-efficient, and serviceable version of Aurora’s hardware platform designed for large-scale deployment. The company is also developing an independent secondary system that can take control in the rare event of a primary system failure.
Continental will begin testing prototype hardware kits in the coming months, ahead of full-scale production scheduled for 2027. The hardware—integrating NVIDIA’s DRIVE Thor with DriveOS—will be assembled at Continental’s manufacturing facilities and shipped to Aurora’s truck OEM partners for integration into commercial vehicles.
Aurora has not yet disclosed pricing for its autonomous trucks or the Aurora Driver platform. However, the company plans to offer its services via a subscription model, allowing fleet operators to adopt autonomous technology without significant upfront costs. Specific pricing details remain under wraps for now.
