An All-Star-Led Startup Increases Paccar’s Chances of Survival in The Autonomous Electric Age

By Trey Thoelcke Updated Jan 26, 11:07AM EST · Published Jan 26, 7:00AM EST

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An All-Star-Led Startup Increases Paccar’s Chances of Survival in The Autonomous Electric Age — © jcrosemann / iStock via Getty Images

By Tasha Keeney, Analyst

This week Aurora partnered with Paccar to create and deploy autonomous trucks “within the next several years”. Aurora is an autonomous technology startup led by Chris Urmson, former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Self-Driving Cars at Google, as well as Sterling Anderson, former Autopilot head at Tesla, and Drew Bagnell, founding member of Uber’s Advanced Technology Group. In our opinion, highly respected truck manufacturer Paccar will help Aurora scale the number of electric and autonomous trucks on public roads much faster than otherwise would be the case. As a result, Aurora’s autonomous system could be trained on more real-world scenarios than will those of most other truck manufacturers except perhaps for Tesla. Important to both Aurora and Paccar, fully integrated, purpose-built autonomous vehicles are likely to perform much better than the combination of outsourced autonomous systems and manufactured trucks.

According to ARK’s research, the transportation industry will consolidate dramatically during the transition to autonomous electric platforms. ARK estimates that autonomous electric trucks could lower freight transportation costs from 12 cents to roughly 3 cents per ton mile, undercutting rail prices and potentially putting $400 billion in fixed rail assets at risk.

Catherine Wood, ARK Invest CEO, is a shareholder of 24/7 Wall St. LLC.

About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.