Aurora Innovation, the autonomous vehicle technology company that aims to launch a “driverless” self-driving truck business by the end of 2024, laid off dozens of workers this month, according to sources familiar with the action. The Pittsburgh-based company, which also has facilities in California, Colorado, Texas and Montana, has since confirmed that about 3% of its workforce was laid off earlier this year following an organizational review.
Aurora employed about 1,800 workers by the end of 2023, according to the company.
“As we move toward commercial launch, we recently overhauled the entire organization to ensure we are working as efficiently as possible and at the speed needed to achieve our ambitious goals,” according to a statement emailed to Aurora’s senior vice president , Christopher Barrett. . “Through this process, a limited number of roles were eliminated that affected 3 percent of our total workforce. During the recent market uncertainty, we have been incredibly cautious with our resources to minimize such actions. We are grateful for the contributions of these individuals and support them in this transition.”
The layoffs come as Aurora moves forward with plans to develop a fleet of self-driving trucks that can navigate U.S. highways without a human driver behind the wheel. The company has said it expects to launch up to 20 driverless Class 8 trucks by the end of 2024. Initially, these driverless trucks — meaning there’s no human behind the wheel — will transport cargo between Dallas and Houston, a route used by the company for testing.
Aurora is also working with automotive supplier Continental on a more than $300 million project to mass-produce autonomous vehicle hardware for commercial autonomous trucks. Aurora recently completed the first phase of the project, which allows Continental to work on prototype development ahead of its plan to begin production in 2027.
Developing autonomous vehicle technology that is safe enough for public roads has proven to be a costly endeavor that has led to the closure or acquisition of many startups. This consolidation wave started in 2020 and continued, thanks to economic headwinds, until 2023.
Aurora, which was founded in 2017 from alumni of Tesla, Uber and Waymo, has hit the public markets in an effort to raise the capital needed to commercialize its cutting-edge technology. Aurora became a publicly traded company in 2021 after merging with a special-purpose buyout firm launched by LinkedIn co-founder and investor Reid Hoffman, Zynga founder Mark Pincus and managing partner Michael Thompson.
Aurora has emerged as one of the last remaining companies focused on commercializing large self-driving rigs. Kodiak Robotics, which is privately held. Torc Robotics; and Sweden’s Einride are also working on autonomous trucks. However, it hasn’t always been the smoothest road, as the high cost of hiring engineers to develop the technology combined with economic headwinds has weakened capital.
In 2022, a leaked memo from Aurora CEO and co-founder Chris Urmson presented a number of cost-cutting and cash-generating options to its board, ranging from a hiring freeze and asset divestment to a small capital increase, the privately held and even sold to high-profile tech companies Apple and Microsoft.
The company assured investors that it had enough cash to see it through to mid-2024, and while some cost reductions were made, the real relief came in July 2023 when it completed an $820 million capital raise from a public and concurrent private offering of its stock.
The company said at the time that the share sale would help finance it through the IPO in late 2024 and “well into 2025.” Aurora reiterated its financial position in its third-quarter 2023 earnings report and said it expects its total cash flow of $1.5 billion to support its planned commercial launch and financing operations for the second half of 2025.
