Texas Highways Have a New Nighttime Creature: Autonomous Trucks

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Texas Highways Have a New Nighttime Creature: Autonomous Trucks

Aurora Innovation says its driverless system can detect objects further than the length of three football fields—in the dark

By Esther Fung, WSJ

Updated July 30, 2025

Autonomous trucks developed by Aurora Innovation are now operating at night between Dallas and Houston. Photo: Aurora Innovation

Autonomous trucks are now driving highways at night, hauling food and dairy between Dallas and Houston.

It’s a big step forward for autonomous trucking. While Waymo for years has been operating driverless robotaxis around the clock in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, autonomous trucks until recently have stuck mainly to daytime hours and good weather.

Aurora Innovation AUR -3.02%decrease; red down pointing triangle, the startup behind the trucks on the Dallas-Houston route, said Wednesday it had reached a new milestone with its Lidar system, which bounces lasers off surrounding objects to “see” its surroundings in 3-D. Aurora said its system is now able, in the dark, to detect objects further than the length of three football fields, enabling the vehicle to identify pedestrians, other vehicles or debris on the road about 11 seconds sooner than a human driver.

Not far away, driverless trucks from another company, Kodiak Robotics, are now operating around the clock in parts of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, delivering loads of sand for use in fracking. These five trucks—which operate on leased roads, not highways–don’t have a human on board.

Aurora’s trucks do have a human behind the wheel, just in case. So do autonomous Kodiak trucks operating on highways from Dallas to Atlanta, Houston and Oklahoma City—some of which drive at night.

Proponents of autonomous trucks say they are a safer and more reliable option than human drivers, who could be exhausted or distracted. Still, there are plenty of skeptics, including some truck drivers, who say autonomous vehicles are unable to manage more complicated environments, like congestion, bad weather or unexpected situations.

Aurora had trucks perform complex tasks on test tracks to simulate different scenarios—including mannequins on the track—to satisfy itself that the system could safely handle nighttime driving. The system, called the Aurora Driver, has completed more than 20,000 driverless miles since it began operating on public roads in May.

“At night, it’s even harder than it is during the daytime to be able to disambiguate, say, a person versus a piece of tire on a freeway,” said Chris Urmson, co-founder and chief executive officer at Aurora.

Autonomous trucks with nighttime capabilities have the potential to reshape long-haul trucking.

Aurora is now testing the system between Phoenix and Fort Worth. The journey takes around 16 hours and typically requires two drivers to complete, with a stop for a handover. Federal law allows long-haul truckers to drive a maximum of 11 hours in a 14-hour period, followed by a mandatory 10-hour break.

Hirschbach Motor Lines, an Iowa-based trucking company with around 3,000 trucks and 3,600 drivers, has been passing on freight such as berries, bananas and household goods to Aurora’s driverless trucks.

Richard Stocking, Hirschbach’s CEO, said autonomous vehicles could make truck driving more attractive to younger workers who prioritize work-life balance and prefer more predictable work schedules. Autonomous trucks could handle more long-haul routes, he said, freeing up human drivers for local or regional trips. This could allow them to get home more often—“if not daily, several times a week,” he said.

Troy Turnham, a truck driver based in Oklahoma, said he was unconvinced.

“Maybe they are good for less populated areas,” he said. “I’m not sure I would trust being around them when a severe storm hits, nor in the winter.”

Aurora is hoping to pass its next hurdle—driving in the rain—by the end of the year.

Write to Esther Fung at esther.fung@wsj.com