FRANKFORT, Germany and PITTSBURGH — German automotive parts company Continental AG and U.S.-based self-driving technology firm Aurora Innovation have entered into a partnership to design and develop autonomous driving systems for trucks.
The companies made the announcement on Thursday, April 27.
“At Continental, we are proud to demonstrate our leading technology expertise by being responsible for the development, manufacturing and implementation of the autonomous driving system kits and the fallback path for Aurora’s autonomy system,” said Nikolai Setzer, CEO of Continental. “In this exclusive partnership, we bundle our systems competence with Aurora’s industry-leading autonomous technology for our common goal to jointly realize the first commercially scalable autonomous trucking systems. A crucial step towards autonomous mobility.”
To industrialize the Aurora Driver, Continental officials say they will leverage their automotive product portfolio to develop, manufacture, manage and deliver a variety of equipment, including automotive radar, cameras and high-performance computers. Continental will integrate these hardware components into pods that will be supplied to Aurora’s vehicle manufacturing partners, according to a news release.
“Delivering autonomous vehicles at scale has the potential to dramatically transform modern transportation, bringing new accessibility, safety and efficiency to the movement of goods and people,” said Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO at Aurora. “Continental’s legacy in development and industrialization of automated driving systems, combined with its commitment to transform transportation make it an ideal partner for Aurora. Their depth of expertise will be pivotal to scaling Aurora’s autonomous trucking solution, Aurora Horizon.”
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