Aurora Innovation, Inc. (AUR)
UndervaluedFundamental
15
Price
$4.81
Market Cap
$9.73B
Part 1 · What the company is worth
Overview
Aurora Innovation builds self-driving technology for heavy trucks. Its product, the Aurora Driver, is a combination of sensors, computers and software that a truck manufacturer installs so the vehicle can drive itself on highways without a human behind the wheel. Aurora does not build trucks: it partners with truck makers such as PACCAR and Volvo and with freight carriers, and began hauling paying freight without a safety driver on board in 2025.
How it makes money
Aurora plans to charge carriers a per-mile fee once its driverless trucks are operating at scale, a model it calls Driver-as-a-Service — closer to a toll than to a product sale. Today that revenue is tiny: fiscal 2025 revenue was just $3 million, against an operating loss of $901 million, because the company is still in the early, capital-intensive phase of proving the technology and expanding routes before meaningful revenue can follow.
Competitive moat
No identified moat · NoneAurora has technology and safety-validation miles that rivals cannot instantly replicate, but nothing yet locks in a customer or blocks a competitor: Waymo Via, Kodiak Robotics and others are pursuing the same market, truck makers can work with more than one self-driving partner, and no carrier is contractually bound to Aurora long term at this early stage.
What drives demand
CyclicalAurora's addressable market is the trucking industry, whose freight volumes rise and fall with industrial output and consumer spending — a cyclical market like the one served by CSX and other freight carriers. Right now, however, Aurora's own revenue is driven far more by how many routes and trucks it can add than by the freight cycle itself, since it is starting from a near-zero base.
Key risks
- Deeply unprofitable, reliant on continued financing — Aurora lost $816 million in 2025 and burned $581 million of cash from operations; scaling the Driver-as-a-Service business to profitability will require years of additional capital, diluting existing shareholders along the way.
- Safety and regulatory approval — Operating trucks with no human driver requires approval from regulators in each state and jurisdiction, and a serious accident involving an Aurora-equipped truck could halt operations or trigger new restrictions industry-wide.
- Dependence on truck maker and carrier partners — Aurora does not manufacture trucks or run a freight business itself; it depends on partners like PACCAR, Volvo and freight carriers choosing to keep investing in the program instead of a rival's technology.
- Competition from well-funded rivals — Waymo, Kodiak Robotics and other autonomous trucking developers, as well as Tesla's ambitions in autonomy, are racing for the same freight lanes and the same truck-maker partnerships Aurora needs.
- Unproven economics at scale — No company has yet shown that driverless trucking is profitable at large scale; insurance costs, maintenance, remote operations support and regulatory compliance could all turn out higher than Aurora currently expects.
Customer concentration
Aurora does not disclose customer-level revenue shares. Commercial loads to date have come from a small number of carrier partners — Werner, Schneider, Hirschbach, Uber Freight — concentrating early revenue by necessity, not choice.
The case for
Buyers argue that Aurora is already running commercial driverless freight in Texas ahead of most rivals, that its partnerships with major truck makers and carriers give it a path to scale quickly once the technology is proven, and that trucking's persistent driver shortage creates a large market waiting for a viable alternative.
The case against
Sellers worry that Aurora is burning hundreds of millions of dollars a year against just a few million in revenue, that a single serious accident could set back regulatory approval for years, and that better-funded rivals could out-invest Aurora before its technology reaches meaningful scale.
Written by the editors, published on August 18, 2026
Direct competitors
Who this company fights with for the same customers
Generated with artificial intelligence on August 23, 2026, shared with all users
Kodiak sells a driver-as-a-service autonomous system for Class 8 long-haul and off-road trucks to the same US carriers and shippers Aurora is courting, and is the only other player already running paid driverless freight on public roads.
Torc, the autonomous-truck arm of Daimler Truck, is building a factory-integrated Level 4 Freightliner Cascadia for US hub-to-hub long-haul freight, the same corridors and fleet customers Aurora targets.
Waabi is developing a rival autonomous driver for Class 8 hub-to-hub freight in Texas on the Volvo platform and through Uber Freight, competing for the same truck OEM slots and the same freight network Aurora relies on.
Plus licenses its SuperDrive Level 4 software to truck manufacturers — Navistar, Scania and MAN of the Traton Group — putting it head to head with Aurora for the OEM partnerships that decide who ships autonomous trucks at volume.
Gatik already runs fully driverless box trucks on fixed middle-mile routes for Walmart, Kroger and other large US retailers, taking freight volumes and logistics budgets that Aurora also wants to serve.
Balance Sheet & Liquidity
Revenue
$5M
Trailing 12 months (through 6/30/2026)
Net Income
$-900M
Trailing 12 months (through 6/30/2026)
Free Cash Flow
$-612M
Total Equity
$2.14B
Total Liabilities
$203M
Current Ratio
11.38
Interest Coverage
-
Debt/EBITDA
-
Earnings Per Share
Revenue & Net Income
Free Cash Flow
Income Breakdown
Historical statement
Margins over time
Debt over time
How heavy the debt is
Growth grid
Growth — Revenue
Fair Value Estimation
Fair Value
$12.13
Current Price
$4.81
Margin of Safety
+60.4%
Fair Value Range
$11.53 - $12.74
Spread across the valuation methods used, not a statistically calibrated confidence interval.
Estimation Methods
Valuation Metrics
P/E Ratio
-
ROE
-38.1%
P/B Ratio
4.92
P/FCF
-
Gross Margin
-400.0%
ROIC
-37.3%
Profitability Radar
Value Creation (Economic Moat)
ROIC
-37.3%
WACC
17.8%
ROIC − WACC
-55.1 pp
ROIC is below the cost of capital — the company is destroying value for every dollar invested.
Fundamental Analysis Criteria
Passed (2)
- Debt/equity ratio
- Current ratio
Failed (14)
- EPS shows upward trend
- Price CAGR -10.91%
- ROIC -37.3%
- Gross margin -400.0%
- P/B ratio 4.92
- Operating margin -19,400.0%
- Positive free cash flow
- Return on tangible assets
- Low reliance on intangibles
- DCF valuation (Unknown)
- ROE -43.1%
- Earnings surprise, average 1.7%
- Share dilution 14.0%
- Piotroski F-Score 4/9
Unavailable (10)
- P/FCF –
- Dividend payout –
- CapEx intensity
- Interest coverage
- Debt/EBITDA
- Price below Graham Number
- Revenue growth 5Y
- PEG ratio (needs P/E > 0 and growth > 0)
- Earnings quality (operating cash flow / net income)
- Net margin trend (invalid data)
Piotroski F-Score
Mixed signals: some areas need attention
Earnings Quality
Low quality: investigate accounting
Share Dilution
Issuing new shares, diluting ownership
Institutional Holdings
Governance
Executive Team
| Name | Title | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Mr. Christopher Urmson Ph.D. | Co-Founder, CEO & Non-Independent Executive Chairman | 48 |
| Ms. Ossa Fisher | President | 48 |
| Mr. David Maday | Chief Financial Officer | 55 |
| Ms. Shelley Webb | Secretary & Chief Legal Officer | 43 |
| Mr. James Andrew Bagnell | Chief Scientist | 48 |
| Ms. Stacy Feit C.F.A. | Vice President of Investor Relations | - |
| Gerardo Interiano | Vice President of Government Relations & Public Affairs | - |
| Mr. Nat Beuse | Chief Safety Officer | - |
| Dr. Sandor Barna Ph.D. | Senior Vice President of Hardware | 56 |
Audit Risk
6
Board Risk
8
Compensation Risk
9
Shareholder Rights Risk
10
Documents
- View document
Annual Report (10-K)
A yearly overview of the business, its financial results, and the risks it faces.
Filed on 2026-02-11
- View document
Quarterly Report (10-Q)
A snapshot of financial performance for the most recent three-month period.
Filed on 2026-07-29
- View document
Current Report (8-K)
An announcement of a major event, such as a leadership change or big news.
Filed on 2026-09-23
via SEC EDGAR
Income History
via SEC EDGAR
Part 2 · The price and its context
This part shows how the price has behaved, not whether the company is worth owning. Inside: technical analysis, potential, historical drawdowns, gamma exposure.
Market Reaction Profile
How much AUR moves, measured on its daily prices.
More volatile than 88% of the tracked stocks (90-day volatility).
- Volatility 30d
- 63.9%
- Volatility 90d
- 64.7%
- Beta vs S&P 500 (1y)
- 2.97Correlation 0.56
- Max drawdown (12m)
- -42.2%
- ATR (14d, % of price)
- 6.48%
Earnings reactions
How AUR moved around its past quarterly results.
Next earnings release
Oct 28, 2026 · In 4 days · After the close
Revenue estimate: $3M
What usually happens
- Over the last 12 releases the stock moved a median of 5.2% the next day, up or down.
- Next-day moves: up 6, down 6 (out of 12).
Release history
| Date | When | EPS est. | EPS actual | Surprise | Gap | 1 day | 5 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 29, 2026 | After the close | -0.12 | -0.14 | -17.6% | -1.3% | +4.3% | +11.9% |
| May 6, 2026 | After the close | -0.12 | -0.11 | +6.6% | -1.6% | -1.8% | +15.5% |
| Feb 11, 2026 | After the close | -0.12 | -0.11 | +7.3% | +2.3% | -3.2% | +11.5% |
| Oct 28, 2025 | After the close | -0.12 | -0.11 | +10.5% | -0.4% | -1.9% | -13.7% |
| Jul 30, 2025 | After the close | n/a | n/a | n/a | +7.4% | +0.3% | +4.3% |
| May 8, 2025 | After the close | n/a | n/a | n/a | +3.9% | -6.1% | -12.0% |
| Feb 12, 2025 | After the close | n/a | n/a | n/a | +5.9% | +46.0% | +28.8% |
| Oct 30, 2024 | After the close | n/a | n/a | n/a | -14.0% | -21.8% | -14.0% |
| Jul 31, 2024 | After the close | n/a | n/a | n/a | -5.8% | +1.8% | -17.3% |
| May 8, 2024 | After the close | n/a | n/a | n/a | -6.5% | +7.4% | -13.1% |
| Feb 14, 2024 | After the close | n/a | n/a | n/a | +1.8% | -6.1% | -22.5% |
| Nov 1, 2023 | After the close | n/a | n/a | n/a | +3.3% | +6.1% | +8.8% |
Release dates from SEC 8-K filings.
Updated 10/24/2026
Historical statistics for educational purposes only. They are not forecasts and not investment advice.
Price reaction to the news
Latest news on AUR and what the price did next.
- 5/18/2026PositiveAurora And Berkshire Hathaway's McLane Say Autonomous Trucking Pilot Hit 100% On-Time Performance
- +1 day
- -3.7%
- +3 days
- -7.9%
- 5/1/2026PositiveAurora Innovation shares surge on 500 autonomous truck deal with Hirschbach
- +1 day
- +4.0%
- +3 days
- +10.3%
- 3/10/2026PositiveIs This Autonomous Trucking Stock a Buy in March?
Published while the US market was open: the move of that day cannot be split into before and after the news, so no figure is shown.
- 3/5/2026PositiveWhy Aurora Innovation Zoomed 11% Higher in February
- +1 day
- +0.1%
- +3 days
- +3.7%
Return of the stock minus return of SPY over the same days. A news item close to a price move did not necessarily cause it. Historical data for educational purposes only, not investment advice.
Latest News
Recent headlines for AUR.
- 5/18/2026POSITIVEAurora And Berkshire Hathaway's McLane Say Autonomous Trucking Pilot Hit 100% On-Time Performance
Aurora Innovation Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway's McLane subsidiary have announced a successful autonomous trucking pilot, achieving 100% on-time performance over 280,000 miles. This milestone demonstrates the reliability and efficiency of Aurora's self-driving technology in real-world logistics operations. For investors, this strong performance in a critical sector like trucking suggests significant progress towards commercial viability and could bolster confidence in Aurora's future revenue potential and market adoption.
- 5/1/2026POSITIVEAurora Innovation shares surge on 500 autonomous truck deal with Hirschbach
Aurora Innovation Inc. saw its shares climb significantly after announcing a substantial expansion of its partnership with Hirschbach Motor Lines. The refrigerated freight carrier has indicated its intention to deploy 500 of Aurora's autonomous trucks, marking a major step towards commercialization. A non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlines the framework for deliveries to commence in 2027, with definitive terms anticipated soon. This development is a strong indicator of market acceptance and potential revenue growth for Aurora's autonomous driving technology, boosting investor confidence.
- 3/10/2026POSITIVEIs This Autonomous Trucking Stock a Buy in March?
Aurora Innovation Inc. experienced a strong performance in February, signaling potential upside for investors in March. While specific financial figures are not detailed, the positive momentum suggests that the company's autonomous trucking technology is gaining traction or that market sentiment towards the stock has improved. Investors are likely watching for continued progress in development, regulatory approvals, and potential commercial partnerships that could further validate the company's long-term growth prospects.
- 3/5/2026POSITIVEWhy Aurora Innovation Zoomed 11% Higher in February
Aurora Innovation Inc., an autonomous truck technology developer, reported significant progress in February, causing its stock to surge 11%. This notable increase suggests investors are rewarding the company's technological advancements and growth prospects in the autonomous logistics sector. The market appears to be reacting positively to recent developments, anticipating potential commercial deals or the nearing of full operational capability for Aurora's self-driving systems.