Aurora is finally ready to show the world what it’s been up to
The secretive self-driving car company unveiled its plans for 2020 Aurora, the self-driving car company founded by former Waymo engineer Chris Urmson, doesn’t do dog and pony shows. It doesn’t trot out its vehicles just to prove they exist or take journalists for test drives to demonstrate that the technology actually works. In fact, in the three years since Aurora launched, the public has heard very little about how Aurora plans to compete against Waymo, Ford, and General Motors. After months of announcements — the company acquired a LIDAR sensor maker, hired a VP of hardware, and took an investment from Amazon — that finally appears to be changing. Just before the New Year, Urmson’s co-founders Sterling Anderson and Drew Bagnell hosted a rare media event to talk about their technology and take journalists for test drives. It was, in other words, a dog and pony show. “These vehicles look like garbage because they’re test vehicles,” Anderson said, before ushering us o