Aurora Innovation, a Pittsburgh company leading the charge on autonomous trucking in the U.S., is looking for cheerleaders in government to shape regulation of the emerging industry.
They may have just found one in U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, who said Friday on a tour of an Aurora manufacturing facility in Lower Lawrenceville he’s eager to help the sector grow.
China has already established a formidable lead over the U.S. on electric vehicles, McCormick told Aurora officials.
“Let’s make sure they don’t win the (autonomous vehicle) race,” the first-term Republican senator from Squirrel Hill said.
McCormick may be enthusiastic about driverless technology, but it’s hardly his forte. He’s never been in an autonomous vehicle and conceded he’s still forming detailed stances on the topic.
“I have a lot to learn,” he said.
Founded in 2017, Aurora is ramping up commercialization by rolling out hundreds of autonomous tractor-trailers in the Sun Belt, where favorable weather and political climates have made driverless trucking easier.
It was nearly blocked from doing so by a U.S. Department of Transportation regulation that mandated the use of reflective triangles placed on the highway to warn oncoming traffic of a pulled-over truck.
A driverless truck, of course, needs another way to signal caution. Aurora scored a major victory in October when the agency cleared it to use cab-mounted beacons, instead, though that exemption will need to be renewed.
Aurora is hoping for more durable federal legislation on the warning systems — a change McCormick called “common sense.”
Another threat is on the horizon, however: budding state-level efforts to require human monitors in driverless trucks. Bills to do just that have been proposed in Florida and New York. California regulations effectively ban these vehicles, though that could soon change.
The Teamsters union, which represents tens of thousands of truck drivers, has been a leading opponent of this technology.
Aurora is headquartered along Smallman Street in the Strip District. It has about 10 facilities between the Strip District and neighboring Lower Lawrenceville totalling 500,000 square feet and holding about 1,000 employees.
McCormick saw the largest of the manufacturing sites, which make devices that enable autonomous driving.
The firm has a roughly $9 billion market capitalization, but collected only $3 million in operating revenue last year. It will likely be under significant pressure in the coming years from investors to deliver on its vision of making driverless trucks commonplace.
Natural gas conference
Right before his Aurora visit, McCormick gave the keynote address at the EU-U.S. LNG Cooperation 2.0 conference, an all-day meeting of diplomats and energy executives at the Heinz History Center to promote the transatlantic liquefied natural gas trade.
The gas flows east: From the U.S. drilling operations — many of which are located in Western Pennsylvania — to European ports. The U.S. supplies nearly 60% of Europe’s liquefied natural gas imports, according to McCormick.
U.S. exports will likely ramp up even further after European Union countries agreed in January to ban Russian natural gas imports by late 2027, a response to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. McCormick would welcome an increase.
“An energy-dominant America means an energy-secure Europe,” he said.
McCormick, who serves on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, has positioned himself as an unabashed advocate of President Donald Trump’s low-regulation, fossil fuel-heavy ”energy dominance” agenda.
Speaking with reporters later Friday, he downplayed concerns that Trump’s efforts to purchase Greenland, remake trade relationships and secure greater NATO contributions from European countries could harm efforts at collaboration in the energy sector.
“We’re not getting divorced,” McCormick said of the U.S. and Europe. ”One partner had strayed and we needed a reset.”