Continental and Aurora Innovation finalise design and architecture of the Aurora Driver's fallback system and hardware for SAE Level 4 autonomous driving. The company plans to begin production in 2027 after entering a partnership less than a year ago for high-volume manufacturing of autonomous trucking systems.
Introducing new hardware to the market is complex and time-intensive, often taking years. Both companies joined forces to develop reliable, serviceable, cost-efficient autonomous hardware kits for mass production, enabling Aurora to deploy autonomous trucks at scale after its initial driverless launch in 2024. The Aurora Driver aims to deliver customer value for one million miles.
Maximising Safety Through Engineering Synergy
Aurora is working with Continental's engineering team to provide an industrialised fallback system expected to go into production in 2027. Autonomous vehicles require built-in redundancies for component or sensor failures. This dual engineering approach minimises single points of failure, enhancing system reliability.
Philipp von Hirschheydt, Executive Board Member for the Automotive Group Sector, Continental, emphasised the transformative potential of autonomous mobility technologies. He stated, 'Technologies for autonomous mobility present the biggest opportunity to transform driving behaviour since the creation of the automobile. Achieving this milestone puts us on a credible path to deploy easy-to-service autonomous trucking systems that customers demand.'
Chris Urmson, Co-Founder and CEO, Aurora, highlighted the strategic importance of building a strong partner ecosystem for the successful deployment of autonomous technology. He stated, 'From day one, we knew we'd need to build a strong ecosystem of partners to bring this technology to market safely and at a commercial scale.'
The Path to Production in 2027
Continental and Aurora share their partnership roadmap:
- 2023 – Blueprint and Design: Detailed system architecture and technical specifications completed.
- 2024-2025 – Build and Test: Initial hardware versions built and tested at Continental's facility.
- 2026-2027 – Finalisation, Start of Production, and Integration: Continental will validate the future Aurora Driver hardware and fallback system, incorporating various components from its automotive product portfolio.
- 2027 and beyond – Deployment at Scale: Thousands of trucks integrated with the Aurora Driver set to autonomously haul freight across the US.
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