{ "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": 18, "pageCount": 45, "prevPage": 17, "nextPage": 19, "slideType": "preempt_rebuttal", "function": "preempt_rebuttal", "density": "dense", "nDataPoints": 0, "notes": "This is a text-heavy research note slide from Kerrisdale Capital, acting as a rebuttal to Aurora's management claims.", "elementsJson": [ "paragraph", "quote_block" ], "metadataConfidence": 0.95, "imagePath": null, "slideHref": "/slides/019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d/18", "deckHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d", "deckJsonHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d.json", "deckAnchorHref": "/decks/019dd923-622c-750b-8b98-455ec9c0494d#slide-18", "components": [ { "bbox": null, "kind": "callout", "text": "It's hard to overstate how disingenuous this is.", "attrs": null, "subkind": null, "toolName": "Visual emphasis", "toolSlug": "visual-emphasis", "confidence": null, "componentId": "019dd953-2040-777a-8552-36791b8df28c", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.15, "w": 0.66, "x": 0.17, "y": 0.25 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Essentially, some customers have facilities that are themselves strategically located (\"natural consolidation points\") and so those locations can be part of the hub-to-hub network. This sounds great in theory, but in practice the proportion of trucking mileage that fits these criteria is small. Large potential customers whose business is trucking – like Werner, Hirschbach, and Schneider, all of whom have (or had in the case of Schneider) relationships with Aurora and other autonomous trucking companies – are in the business of shipping direct for their fragmented and geographically dispersed customer base.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "2624706d-12e2-4e1c-a5d4-8328144f545c", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.18, "w": 0.66, "x": 0.17, "y": 0.54 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "It's hard to overstate how disingenuous this is. To get an idea, on the next page is a map of the Houston terminal, and you can easily see that the terminal is less than half a mile away from the highway exit and requires one turn and a single arterial road to be traversed between the highway and the terminal. To insinuate that this somehow shows that Aurora's Driver regularly drives through industrial urban-type settings is just ridiculous. What makes it even more misleading is that the other 3 Aurora terminals – in Palmer (south of Dallas), Aledo (west of Fort Worth), and El Paso – are even closer to the highway than the one in Houston, and much more remote (none of them are actually in the cities which Aurora labels them as, except for the Houston terminal).", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "5ca70bd6-7f53-426a-a583-1b4a957f3f94", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.15, "w": 0.66, "x": 0.17, "y": 0.09 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "facility, a big distribution center, their own terminals where they're doing a lot of their operations out of, to allow our trucks to drive and ultimately their trucks to drive directly to their location...To give you an example of how complex is this one, when we drive to Houston today, our trucks drive right past the entrance to one such location. We're already driving to many of these regions. We expect that that rapid incremental capability, the ability to bring that online, will allow an increased growth in our network. It'll allow us to make our network more capillary, augment our terminal coverage, and ultimately increase the value of our product to our customers...", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "af02f5ed-8f04-4a81-969f-31c28d1c7c86", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.05, "w": 0.66, "x": 0.17, "y": 0.4 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Finally, we would note that on its earnings calls, Aurora's management sometimes teases the implication that its Aurora Driver will be easily extendable to non-highway trips. A great example was at last year's investor day:", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "d03273ba-3fbf-46a1-9555-5f6d3e99fbd7", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.06, "w": 0.66, "x": 0.17, "y": 0.46 }, "kind": "quote", "text": "I say road network...and not highway network only, because our trucks do drive off highway. They drive through industrial urban type settings. They drive on surface streets to get to, for instance, our terminal in Houston.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "pull-quote", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "351db8af-1889-4185-815b-ac160037d29f", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": null, "kind": "quote", "text": "I say road network...and not highway network only, because our trucks do drive off highway. They drive through industrial urban type settings. They drive on surface streets to get to, for instance, our terminal in Houston. — Aurora Management", "attrs": null, "subkind": null, "toolName": "Authority citation", "toolSlug": "authority-citation", "confidence": null, "componentId": "019dd953-2040-777a-8552-3bdf02b1ad5f", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null } ], "metrics": [], "tools": [], "frameworks": [ { "name": "fraud-exposure", "slug": null, "matchId": "7814050b-5aaa-41c4-9ac8-3e14447dcb6c", "evidence": "The slide explicitly calls management claims 'disingenuous' and 'misleading' to expose a gap between marketing and reality.", "confidence": 0.9 } ], "arcBeats": [], "loops": [], "imagePathAlt": null, "thumbSrc": null, "thumbSrcAlt": null, "locked": true }