A Palo Alto startup launched by a trio of self-driving car pioneers expects to bring its driverless technology to the streets on some of the best-known car brands in the world by 2021.
Aurora Innovation, whose founders led early autonomous-vehicle efforts at Google, Tesla and Uber, announced on Thursday that it is partnering with Hyundai Motor Company and Volkswagen Group on developing cars that can drive themselves for the mass market.
The company, which also has an office in Pittsburgh, develops and designs a self-driving system -- hardware, software, sensors -- that can work with cars from a number of companies.
Founders Chris Urmson (who used to lead Google's autonomous vehicle project), Sterling Anderson (who led Tesla's Autopilot system) and James Bagnell (a key engineer in Uber's self-driving effort) quietly launched Aurora at the end of 2016 with the goal of working with automakers to bring its technology to a broad market more quickly.
"Our priority ... is to make self-driving cars a reality quickly, broadly and safely, and we know we will get there faster by partnering with innovative automakers,"Aurora CEO Urmson said in a press release.
For Volkswagen, which owns VW, Audi, Porsche, Bentley and Lamborghini among its brands, the collaboration will help the car manufacturer step up its pace in integrating a self-driving system across the group's brands, Volkswagen Group Chief Digital Officer Johann Jungwirth said in a press release.
Jungwirth said VW has been working unofficially with Aurora for the past six months with the goal of producing autonomous cars and driverless taxis.
Hyundai plans to bring autonomous cars to the market in three years through its partnership with Aurora.
To start, the partnership will focus on developing autonomous vehicles that can operate without human input under select conditions. Hyundai's new-generation fuel-cell vehicle will become the first model to be used in test pilots in select cities.
Over the longer term, Hyundai and Aurora will work to commercialize self-driving vehicles worldwide, Hyundai said in a company press release.
Aurora, which is headquartered next to the General Motors Advanced Technology Silicon Valley Office at 429 Acacia Ave., posted 23 job openings on it website over the past three days for various engineering positions at its Palo Alto and Pittsburgh sites.
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Comments
Old Palo Alto
on Jan 6, 2018 at 6:34 am
on Jan 6, 2018 at 6:34 am
Good luck for the 23 people in finding housing.
Why not consider moving this operation to one of Northern California's more spacious cities?
Downtown North
on Jan 6, 2018 at 12:33 pm
on Jan 6, 2018 at 12:33 pm
Let's hope they're not underparked.
another community
on Jan 6, 2018 at 8:00 pm
on Jan 6, 2018 at 8:00 pm
How about coming up with a robot that can drive any car? Then we wouldn't have to get new cars to go driverless.
Leland Manor/Garland Drive
on Jan 8, 2018 at 11:15 am
on Jan 8, 2018 at 11:15 am
Wish Aurora every success, but question partnering with VW. Given VW's history of defrauding U.S. customers and government with their diesel's smog test cheating, I believe VW should be precluded from marketing their vehicles in the U.S., at least for an extended period of time. Would have been a much more painful response than the monetary fines that were levied.