Next Stop: Aurora’s Road to Driverless Freight (with Sterling Anderson)

The AV trucking company Aurora is spending the final days of 2024 busily getting ready to at last start hauling freight without humans on board. On the eve of this potentially historic launch, our host Timothy B. Lee catches up with co-founder Sterling Anderson about the long road of technological innovation that led here.

• Sterling shares his journey from leading Autopilot at Tesla to starting Aurora in late 2016.

• The conversation covers the technical and strategic decisions behind Aurora's development, emphasizing their shift from robotaxis to autonomous trucking.
• Sterling highlights key partnerships with OEMs and others that have allowed Aurora scale their operations efficiently.

• Tim and Sterling discuss Aurora's unique approach of verifiable AI to ensure safety and reliability compared to end-to-end monolithic systems.
• Finally, Sterling explains the critical regulatory aspects Aurora is navigating as they aim for a driverless trucking launch between Dallas and Houston by April 2025.