Driverless Freight Lanes And Scaled Hardware Will Transform Long Haul Trucking Over The Next Decade

Catalysts

About Aurora Innovation

Aurora Innovation develops and deploys the Aurora Driver, an autonomous driving system focused on transforming long-haul freight and trucking operations.

What are the underlying business or industry changes driving this perspective?

• Rapid expansion of driverless lanes across the Sun Belt, including multi state routes exceeding 1,000 miles, positions Aurora to capture a growing share of long haul freight and materially increase subscription revenue as miles driven compound.
• Validated ability to operate nearly continuously, including at night and in challenging conditions such as dust storms and heavy rain, allows Aurora powered trucks to substantially outperform human driver utilization, supporting higher revenue per truck and improved customer margins.
• Second and third generation hardware programs, with the next kit expected to cut hardware costs by more than 50% and extend useful life to 1 million miles, directly reduce Aurora’s cost of revenue and support a path toward positive gross profit and expanding net margins.
• Deepening ecosystem of OEM and manufacturing partners, including Volvo, PACCAR, International and AUMOVIO with an Aurora hardware facility scaling by 2027, unlocks production at thousands of units per year, enabling operating leverage and earnings growth as fixed engineering costs are spread over a larger fleet.
• Favorable regulatory and legislative momentum for autonomous trucks, combined with growing customer willingness to launch day one without safety drivers, accelerates adoption of Aurora’s Driver as a Service model and supports a faster ramp in high margin recurring earnings.

Assumptions

This narrative explores a more optimistic perspective on Aurora Innovation compared to the consensus, based on a Fair Value that aligns with the bullish cohort of analysts. How have these above catalysts been quantified?

• The bullish analysts are assuming Aurora Innovation's revenue will grow by 629.9% annually over the next 3 years.
• The bullish analysts are not forecasting that Aurora Innovation will become profitable in next 3 years. To represent the Analyst Price Target as a Future PE Valuation we will estimate Aurora Innovation's profit margin will increase from -40150.0% to the average US Software industry of 12.7% in 3 years.
• If Aurora Innovation's profit margin were to converge on the industry average, you could expect earnings to reach $98.7 million (and earnings per share of $0.04) by about December 2028, up from $-803.0 million today.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the price target of the more bullish analyst cohort, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 460.2x on those 2028 earnings, up from -11.1x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the US Software industry at 31.5x.
• The bullish analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 7.0% per year for the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 8.49%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Risks

What could happen that would invalidate this narrative?

• The company remains far from scale with only five driverless trucks operating today and a near term goal of just tens of trucks in 2025. Any setback in ramping to hundreds of trucks in 2026 and then thousands beyond would limit lane coverage, constrain miles driven and leave revenue materially below bullish expectations, keeping earnings deeply negative.
• The path to positive gross profit is already slipping from late 2026 toward early 2027 and depends on successfully launching second and third generation hardware, achieving a 50 percent plus bill of materials reduction and extending useful life to one million miles. Delays or technical problems in these hardware programs would keep cost of revenue elevated and prevent margin expansion and earnings improvement.
• The model relies on Transportation as a Service and Driver as a Service subscriptions at attractive per mile economics. However, the broader freight market is cyclical and price competitive, and customers may resist premium pricing or slow adoption of driverless operations, which would pressure revenue growth and keep net margins far below the optimistic trajectory implied by the narrative.
• The business is highly exposed to regulatory and safety outcomes, including federal and state frameworks such as the AMERICA DRIVES Act and ongoing validation in difficult weather and surface street environments. Any high profile incident, regulatory restriction or slower than expected approval of new operating domains would cap the number of driverless lanes, reduce utilization and weigh on both revenue and earnings.
• The company is still generating minimal quarterly revenue of one million dollars against large operating losses of 222 million dollars and is funding development with significant share issuance. If the expected scaling and self funding timeline into the second half of 2027 slips, continued cash burn and dilution could erode per share value and delay any improvement in net margins and earnings per share.

Valuation

How have all the factors above been brought together to estimate a fair value?

• The assumed bullish price target for Aurora Innovation is $15.0, which represents up to two standard deviations above the consensus price target of $9.79. This valuation is based on what can be assumed as the expectations of Aurora Innovation's future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors from analysts on the bullish end of the spectrum.
  
• However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of $15.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $3.59.
  
• In order for you to agree with the more bullish analyst cohort, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $777.9 million, earnings will come to $98.7 million, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 460.2x, assuming you use a discount rate of 8.5%.
  
• Given the current share price of $4.6, the analyst price target of $15.0 is 69.3% higher.
  
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.