{ "docId": "019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d", "docSlug": "a408d79c90df", "documentTitle": "Aurora Innovation, Inc. (AUR)", "authorId": "53_Kerrisdale_Capital", "authorName": "Kerrisdale Capital", "documentKindSlug": "research-note", "documentKindLabel": "Research note", "sourceTypeSlug": "short_seller", "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller", "presentationDate": "2025-08-01 00:00:00", "orientation": "portrait", "aspectRatio": 0.77272725, "pageNumber": 17, "pageCount": 45, "prevPage": 16, "nextPage": 18, "slideType": "preempt_rebuttal", "function": "preempt_rebuttal", "density": "dense", "nDataPoints": 2, "notes": "Includes a quote from a former Aurora engineer regarding the complexity of mapping warehouse endpoints.", "elementsJson": [ "paragraph", "quote_block", "footnote" ], "metadataConfidence": 0.9, "imagePath": null, "slideHref": "/slides/019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d/17", "deckHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d", "deckJsonHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d.json", "deckAnchorHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d#slide-17", "components": [ { "bbox": { "h": 0.215, "w": 0.77, "x": 0.118, "y": 0.53 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Needless to say, this isn't going to happen. Aurora knows this and there are basically two ways that it's tried to finesse this problem with investors. The first is to promote autonomous trucking as a hub-to-hub service. The idea here is that autonomous trucking terminals will be built across the country at strategic locations that are right off the highway (thus easier to map, engineer, and maintain). Aurora-driven autonomous trucks would haul goods between terminals while shippers and customers would use the terminals as hubs for shipping or pickup, respectively. We address the economic feasibility of hub-to-hub autonomous trucking in the next section and conclude that the market is small, the revenue potential is limited, and the costs are significant (for example, who's going to build the terminals? Aurora doesn't know just as long as it's not them). In short, it can work, but the entire market is not much bigger than Aurora's current market capitalization and can't possibly justify the investment.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "10770d93-3adf-4c1f-bf24-22e4aae78392", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.035, "w": 0.77, "x": 0.118, "y": 0.093 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "autonomous vehicles through the area and the rapid feedback they provide. Waymo has now done that in 6 different locations covering a total of about 600sqm.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "1ec4c730-ba7c-4171-9a1a-1005e6f297eb", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.085, "w": 0.77, "x": 0.118, "y": 0.755 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Aside from the terminal-to-terminal service, Aurora says it “plan[s] to unlock customer endpoints to augment our terminal footprint.” According to the company\n\nWe're putting in place today the pieces, particularly with some of our larger customers that have natural consolidation points already in the network, be that a large sortation", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "9b2021b7-11f3-4729-a792-9a0cb7044842", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.135, "w": 0.77, "x": 0.118, "y": 0.145 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Aurora doesn't have this option because shippers and customers aren't geographically concentrated. While the geographic distribution of points defined as “rideshare destinations” is extremely dense, the distribution of warehouses and other potential shipping-customer endpoints is not. These facilities tend to be sprawled over large areas outside cities. “Unlocking” Class 8 truck destinations and incorporating the Aurora Driver ODD would mean mapping, testing, and maintaining hundreds of thousands of miles of road, which is totally unrealistic using the current standard of autonomous software architecture.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "d165feca-0fed-45c1-a227-5492a7fd6c39", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.215, "w": 0.72, "x": 0.168, "y": 0.305 }, "kind": "quote", "text": "There's 80,000 warehouses or potential customer endpoints in Dallas, or “logistics facilities” that truckloads could start and stop at. There's 80,000 alone in Dallas...even if we write off half of those as just irrelevant or the wrong business or whatever...That's 40,000. Imagine doing a rules-based approach [i.e., modular architecture] and starting to unlock all those different locations...there's all these routes and different turns and capabilities that you need to individually look at, some engineer needs to look at and say, okay, this is how the truck should handle it. This is how it currently is handling it. Let me tweak this, let me add a rule here. Every time this light is yellow, don't push it. Or whatever the rule is...then, you gotta sort of manage them over time. Like, “does anything change here with this traffic light or this capability or this situation?” and monitor performance.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "pull-quote", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "1ed14ea0-2dd5-4961-b7ed-c1d2b1c13e53", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.05, "w": 0.77, "x": 0.118, "y": 0.865 }, "kind": "source-note", "text": "3 While the total highway road length might be 70,000 miles, adding major arterial roads in both rural and urban areas amounts to an incremental 155,000 miles according to the FHA, and it gets exponentially longer as you move from major arterial roadways to more extended parts of the road network.", "attrs": null, "subkind": null, "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "3091bc75-2d3d-4332-99ba-752bf1b2ef80", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null } ], "metrics": [], "tools": [], "frameworks": [], "arcBeats": [], "loops": [], "imagePathAlt": null, "thumbSrc": null, "thumbSrcAlt": null, "locked": true }