Prepared remarks
Greetings, and welcome to the Aurora Second Quarter 2026 Business Review Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Stacy Feit, Vice President, Investor Relations. You may now begin.
Thanks, Paul. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 business review call. We announced our results earlier this afternoon. Our shareholder letter and a presentation to accompany this call are available on our Investor Relations website at ir.aurora.tech. The shareholder letter was also furnished with our Form 8-K filed today with the SEC. On the call with me today are Chris Urmson, Co-Founder and CEO; and David Maday, CFO. Chris will provide an update on the progress we've made across the key pillars of our business, and David will recap our second quarter financial results. We'll then open up the call to Q&A. A recording of this conference call will be available on our Investor Relations website at ir.aurora.tech shortly after this call has ended. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that during the call, we will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed, projected, or implied during this call. In particular, those described in our risk factors included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and other documents filed with the SEC as well as the current uncertainty and unpredictability in our business, the markets, and economy. Additional information will also be set forth in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. You should not rely on our forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. All forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions and beliefs as of the date hereof, and Aurora disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Our discussion today may include non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from our GAAP results. Information regarding our non-GAAP financial results, including a reconciliation of our historical GAAP to non-GAAP results, may be found in our shareholder letter, which was furnished with our Form 8-K filed today with the SEC and may also be found on our Investor Relations website. Our discussion today may also include reference to forward-looking free cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure. To the extent that this forward-looking financial measure is provided, it's presented on a non-GAAP basis without a reconciliation due to the inherent difficulty in forecasting and quantifying certain amounts that are necessary for such reconciliation. With that, I will now turn the call over to Chris.
Thanks, Stacy. The second quarter represented a meaningful leap forward in our path to scale, anchored by a number of customer wins. To capitalize on this growing demand, we've launched our new fleet of driverless trucks based on the International LT series without a person behind the wheel. Last week, we debuted Aurora Driver 2, the combination of our new software, second-generation commercial hardware, and this new truck platform. If you didn't get a chance to join the live stream, check out the video on Page 4 of the slide deck. This milestone officially moves Aurora into the start of our commercial scaling phase. Backed by this momentum, we are fully allocated to exit the year with 200 driverless trucks in operation and are in negotiations with a number of Driver-as-a-Service business customers for 2027 and beyond. Our commercial momentum continues to accelerate after a strong start to the year, driven by a powerful customer flywheel effect. We recently executed Transportation as a Service agreements with two customers that aim to grow their networks with Aurora Driver-powered trucks, starting in Laredo, Texas, where near-shoring is driving unprecedented freight volume. Charger Logistics will utilize the Aurora Driver to add capacity on its network and drive higher utilization starting on the Dallas-Laredo route, one of the busiest corridors in Texas. Value Truck will initially focus on boosting route density between two key corridors, Dallas-Laredo and Fort Worth-Phoenix. In addition, we expanded our operations with Volvo Autonomous Solutions with their launch of commercial freight service powered by the Aurora Driver for industry leaders, DSV and AVI-SPL. Proving the value of our technology across complex networks and diverse applications lays the groundwork for widespread market adoption. Every new customer acts as a pipeline multiplier. As the broader logistics industry prepares to adopt autonomy, we're streamlining our customer onboarding cycle. This velocity is a powerful testament to the pent-up demand for a solution that helps address systemic industry bottlenecks. While expanding our commercial relationships, the Aurora Driver completed nearly 440,000 driverless miles since launch through the end of June, maintaining a 100% on-time performance record and zero Aurora Driver-attributed collisions. With additional trucks entering service weekly, we expect driverless miles to accelerate meaningfully moving forward. Our scaling plan for this new fleet prioritizes driverless delivery to and from customer facilities to further strengthen the Aurora Driver's value proposition. Our work with Detmar Logistics in West Texas illustrates this versatility. We have deployed driverless operations without a person behind the wheel between their facility in Midland, Texas, and Capital Sand's mining site in Monahans, Texas along I-20. To support this deployment, we validated a frac sand trailer with minimal integration work, demonstrating the modularity and adaptability of the Aurora Driver. To enable nationwide driverless trucking and ensure seamless end-to-end service for our customers, we recently began supervised testing of way station navigation and on-route fueling. While robotaxis will require extensive infrastructure build-out, the freight ecosystem's established service networks and turnkey truck stop footprint makes trucking a plug-and-play market for autonomous technology. Leveraging this infrastructure, we're now piloting third-party fueling and scaling at truck stops. In these pilots, truck stop staff fuel the truck as the Aurora Driver navigates in and out of the fuel island. Looking ahead, truck stop personnel will utilize automated arrival notifications to efficiently secure, fuel, and release Aurora Driver-powered trucks, enabling continuous long-haul travel. To support customer demand that is accelerating, we continue to advance our hardware and autonomy-enabled truck programs. The launch of our new fleet of driverless trucks also marks the initial commercial deployment of our second-generation commercial hardware kit. Engineered for 1 million miles of operation, this kit is designed to significantly increase uptime and reliability. It also delivers substantial performance gains, including a more efficient computer and an extended 1-kilometer range for FirstLight, our proprietary long-range FMCW LiDAR. This long-range capability provides the Aurora Driver with more than 34 seconds of reaction time at highway speeds, setting a new superhuman standard for safety. Crucially, we expect this kit to drive a 50% plus reduction in Aurora Driver hardware costs, a key lever supporting our breakeven gross margin target. We expect to have 20 to 25 driverless trucks in operation by the end of the third quarter. To support our scaling plan, our upfitter Roush has commenced manufacturing at a dedicated facility for Aurora. We've already received the initial builds and expect Roush to ramp to an annual run rate of 1,000 trucks in October. Concurrently, our ecosystem for series production is on a clear trajectory to hit its stride. At Volvo Group's 2026 Capital Markets Day, the company announced plans for Volvo Autonomous Solutions to begin driverless operations on the Volvo VNL autonomous in the first quarter of 2027. These trucks will be driven by the Aurora Driver. They expect to exit 2027 with more than 300 driverless trucks, paving the way for industrial scaling in 2028. We're seeing broad enthusiasm and engagement around the industry with Volvo projecting $3 billion in autonomous revenue within five years. The industrialization of autonomous freight is definitively at an inflection point. Volvo has already completed several Aurora Driver-powered trucks on their pilot line ahead of the first quarter 2027 driverless launch. Looking further ahead, we've also built Volvo development trucks equipped with components of our third-generation commercial hardware kit manufactured by AUMOVIO. Our partnership with AUMOVIO is intended to support tens of thousands of trucks. We look forward to testing these systems in the coming quarters ahead of AUMOVIO's planned start of production in the second half of 2027. In parallel, PACCAR and Aurora are jointly defining the path to a scalable launch of our third-generation commercial hardware kit integrated with PACCAR's future autonomy-enabled platform on their assembly lines. We designed our strategy to enable our asset-light commercial model to be deployed across the leading truck platforms, giving us unmatched flexibility to meet diverse fleet preferences as autonomous trucking scales. Our commercial readiness is matched by a highly supportive regulatory landscape. California recently joined the majority of other states in the U.S. to permit the deployment of driverless trucks. Last month, I had the privilege of representing our industry before the California Assembly Transportation Committee. This engagement provided an opportunity to share key learnings from our safe driverless operations, outline our thoughtful approach to regional expansion, and foster shared confidence in the future of autonomous freight in the state. We have submitted our application to begin the required driver testing in California. At the federal level, we're seeing historic momentum toward a unified national framework. In May, the U.S. House Transportation Infrastructure Committee passed the BUILD America 250 Act, 62-2, a truly bipartisan surface transportation reauthorization bill. This bill features a dedicated framework for the nationwide deployment of autonomous trucks that would help harmonize the current patchwork of state laws and addresses operational updates that Aurora has long championed. For example, the legislation would explicitly permit the use of cab-mounted warning beacons instead of manually placed warning devices when a commercial motor vehicle is stopped. We continue to engage closely with lawmakers to advance this critical legislation into law and secure American leadership in the global autonomous transportation race. Improving road safety is an important component of that global leadership and core to the Aurora Driver's value proposition. To show you what this looks like in practice, I'd like to share a recent example that powerfully underscores our safety advantage. Earlier this month, one of our trucks was traveling on a frontage road in Fort Worth during a development mission. It was in manual mode, meaning the Aurora Driver system was not engaged in autonomy. The truck was being driven by one of our most experienced vehicle operators with over 2 million miles of Class 8 driving experience and a spotless safety record. The Aurora truck was proceeding into an intersection on a green light, which had been green for more than 25 seconds. Unfortunately, another vehicle entered the intersection against the red light and collided with our truck. Thankfully, no serious injuries were reported by either party. However, our truck and the other vehicles sustained significant damage. While the autonomy system was not engaged, through a combination of log review and simulation, we were able to confirm the Aurora Driver perceived the red-light runner nearly 6 seconds prior to the collision and would have slowed to avoid the collision even despite having the right of way with the green light. Events like this motivate our team to keep doing this incredibly important work. Last year, we began operating the first driverless Class 8 trucks on U.S. public roads. As we continue to scale driverless operations, our commitment to safety and transparency remains a core cultural tenet and key differentiator. Now we're entering our commercial scaling phase with Aurora Driver 2. We're already fully allocated to exit the year with 200 driverless trucks. We've earned third-party validation for our safety case, and we've advanced the industrial partnerships to deliver at the scale this opportunity demands. As our fleet grows week by week, we're positioning Aurora to power a meaningful share of the $1 trillion U.S. logistics industry. I'm incredibly proud of the discipline our team has shown in executing our vision responsibly, establishing deep credibility and cultivating an ecosystem of partners, customers, regulators and investors who share our conviction in the future we're building. With that, I'll now pass it over to Dave, who will review our financial results.
Thanks, Chris. Let's review our financial results for which we have provided a summary on Page 6 of the slide deck for reference. Second quarter 2026 revenue totaled $2 million across driverless and vehicle operator supervised commercial loads. The Aurora Driver achieved another record number of commercial miles driven during the quarter. Second quarter operating loss, including stock-based compensation, totaled $266 million. Excluding stock-based compensation of $60 million, R&D totaled $164 million, SG&A was $37 million, and cost of revenue was $7 million. We used approximately $225 million in operating cash during the second quarter of 2026, and capital expenditures totaled $31 million. Excluding $63 million in cash bonus payments, which were funded through our at-the-market program, our cash spend was within our externally communicated quarterly average target. During the quarter, we issued 30 million shares of Class A common stock through our at-the-market program for net proceeds of $215 million. Using a portion of these proceeds as planned to fund the referenced cash bonus payments as well as the tax liability associated with the vesting of employee restricted stock units, we increased our liquidity by $126 million. In turn, we ended the quarter with a very strong balance sheet, including nearly $1.2 billion in cash and short-term investments. We continue to expect 2026 revenue of $14 million to $16 million, up 400% year-over-year at the midpoint. Revenue will be back-end loaded with the fourth quarter projected to contribute over half of full year revenue as we scale driverless operations following the launch of our new fleet. We anticipate exiting the year with more than 200 driverless trucks in operation, which translates to an approximately $80 million revenue run rate for our Transportation-as-a-Service business. This establishes a powerful foundation for 2027 when we expect the core Driver-as-a-Service business model to commence. To support our scaling plan, we continue to expect quarterly cash use of approximately $190 million to $220 million on average in 2026. This includes approximately $150 million in anticipated full year capital expenditures, primarily attributed to our capacity plan. The focused execution driving Aurora's 2026 transition continued in the second quarter. We are making the strategic investments necessary to bring Aurora Driver 2 to large-scale industrial deployment. With every truck on the road, we are driving a safer, more efficient era for logistics. With that, we will now open the call to Q&A.
Questions and answers
Our first question is from George Gianarikas with Canaccord Genuity.
Maybe to start, you clearly have several strong tailwinds at your back. You have a proven technology that's ready to scale, macro pressures like tightening freight capacity, rising fuel costs. So given the positive commercial momentum you've been announcing and recent industry announcements like the one from TFI yesterday around expanding its autonomous operations, what specific catalysts do you think will drive the next real inflection point in commercial adoption? And if I may ask, are you directly involved with TFI?
Thanks, George. As you know, we're not going to comment about potential partnerships with customers until we're able to do that and are aligned with them, so no comment there. In terms of catalyst demand, I think it's just a continued building of trust and credibility. We've seen with each step forward of the technology and each step forward with customer adoption, we get this flywheel effect where the engagement we have with our commercial team just continues to grow. I expect as we put more and more of these second-generation trucks on the road and continue to build the volume there, success begets success; that is my expectation.
And maybe as a follow-up regarding the unit economics and the scaling roadmap. How confident are you that you can achieve your projected hardware cost downs given what's happening from an inflationary perspective? And maybe on the hardware maintenance front, specifically on your proprietary LiDAR, how resilient is the stack against real-world degradation? Should the units require service or replacement, how does that cost curve look for maintaining your in-house components at scale?
We continue to have confidence in our ability to achieve the targets we have for the cost of the hardware kit and the maintenance support of that hardware kit to reach our long-term economic objectives. It's important to understand the level of rigor and testing we put these systems through to achieve the durability we intend. We've been testing these units for months already, and we'll continue to test them so we can build confidence. We've already begun some of the reliability testing for the third-generation hardware components. This work is in flight and gives us a lot of confidence in what we can expect going forward with the fleet. Dave, is there anything you'd add?
Yes. In terms of confidence in the economics, we are already building our second-generation kit, so we have costs for the ones we're producing today and estimates for those we'll be producing into next year. We have a pretty good handle on that. Certainly, there are some headwinds in terms of costs, but these kits are also designed and expected to last 1 million miles. So some minor increases in component costs, when you look at it on a unit economic basis for gross profit per mile, are not materially going to impact our gross margin projections.
Our next question is from Ravi Shanker with Morgan Stanley.
Chris, you said in the release that you are in negotiations with a number of customers for the DaaS business model for '27 and beyond. Can you unpack that a little bit more and maybe give us a glimpse into what momentum of negotiations have been like, especially after the first few commercial agreements that you've announced in the last few months?
Enthusiastic would be the right word. We announced the MOU with Hirschbach a few months ago, and we continue to progress that deal forward. That really will create the framework for the rest of the partnerships that we have in the space. We have clarity on the core elements of that, and we'll continue to move that forward. Customers want to own these assets and see the benefit from them, and we're excited to get these to them.
The other thing I'd say, Ravi, is that for every customer that we sign up with a Transportation-as-a-Service agreement, it is with the intent to then move into Driver-as-a-Service in the following year. In terms of active negotiations, we are working with a couple of folks to make sure that the paper we put in that we want to apply broadly works for everybody. That's why we're actively working with multiple parties. But the intent is if you're a Transportation-as-a-Service customer today, we would expect that you'll start to add Driver-as-a-Service business in 2027.
Our next question is from Andres Sheppard with Cantor Fitzgerald.
Congratulations on the quarter and on getting Gen 2 out, very exciting. Wondering if you can help us quantify the current fleet size: how many Gen 1 versus Gen 2 trucks are in operation today? As we think about your target for Q3, how should we think about that unit mix? And similarly, as we scale to more than 200 trucks by year-end, how should we be thinking about that unit mix going forward?
Great question. Today, we have on the order of 25 trucks operating, and a handful of them are the new International trucks. We expect to grow that to 20 to 25 of the International trucks by the end of this quarter. By the end of the year, as we said, we'll have a couple hundred trucks operating. You can expect the vast majority, if not all, of that fleet by year-end will be International or Volvo. We'll start to phase out the Peterbilt trucks with an eye to reintroducing Peterbilt trucks with a third-generation hardware in the future.
Wonderful. Very helpful. And just a quick follow-up to that: now that Gen 2 has launched, will Gen 1 trucks be phased out completely or upgraded? And how does the 50% improvement in hardware cost reduction on Gen 2 change your path to profitability?
We expect to phase the Gen 1 trucks out. They've served an important purpose in demonstrating the technology, building early customer traction, and being a learning test bed. We're excited to move to the Gen 2 platform with its benefits and scalability for customers. Regarding the 50% cost reduction, this is what we've been discussing as how a second-generation partner ultimately allows us to operate the business with unit economic profitability. We expect that to play out as we improve execution, drive efficiencies in operations, and improve the system. The third-generation hardware will take another step function in cost reduction and will allow us to drive toward the ultimate margins we anticipate in the business.
Our next question is from Chris Pierce with Needham & Company.
This year, year-to-date, you've had a lot of customer announcements. I want to understand how are customers thinking about why they are moving forward? Is it to add capacity and gain share? Is it to better utilize their assets? Or is it about lowering per hour driver costs? How would you bucket those?
I'd say it's more the first two. Every one of our customers puts safety first and talks about the importance of their people and drivers, and how this technology complements them. We expect it to allow them to expand their business, increase utilization of their assets, and enable their people to focus on tasks where they add the most value, including being the face of the company to customers. We're excited to see this help customers grow and become more profitable.
And on that, is it fair to say they see a situation where they can outgrow peers or win share by moving faster than competitors? Is that the right way to think about it?
You'll have to ask them, but we believe this technology is transformational—improving safety, fuel economy, and utilization. If you are not using systems like this in the next five years, you likely won't be competitive in long haul. We're excited for the adoption trajectory.
Okay. Perfect. And one last one: in the letter you mentioned streamlining customer onboarding. Can you give an example of a gating factor that was up and has come down on your side and why you highlighted this?
Conversations are moving more quickly. Part of that is the visible experience and credibility we've built by operating driverless trucks. Part is us being smarter and understanding more about what's involved in integrating with a customer's business, learning from experience, and meeting customers where they are. Experience from operating the fleet and serving customers is accelerating our ability to onboard new customers.
I'd add that because we've reached a point in autonomy performance and generalizability, our ability to take a customer request and react quickly has improved dramatically. We have more trucks and more people to support them and the autonomy systems, so we can respond to customer requests much faster. When we first started, expanding to a new city could take a long time. Once we became comfortable and generalized, adding a new waypoint could take weeks. Our improved speed to respond is a key element.
I'd add one last point: you wouldn't have been able to meet supply with trucks for our customers last year because of first-generation hardware limits and integration work. At this point, we've unlocked the ability to scale. It's much easier to have conversations with customers when we have clarity on how and when we can serve them.
Paul, are you able to open the line to the next question?
We apologize for folks waiting in line. Hopefully, the operator will connect us.
Our next question is from Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.
Chris, curious on Volvo: how are you thinking about Aurora's place in the AV ecosystem longer term as OEMs like Volvo work to build out their own TaaS businesses or BaaS? Do you care who you're selling to, whether it's an OEM running their own fleet or direct to fleet customers under a DaaS model? And Dave, could you comment on the financial implications of OEMs' TaaS versus fleet DaaS for Aurora?
We see our relationship with Volvo in two dimensions: integration with the OEM platform and support and engagement with Volvo Autonomous Solutions as their business. We have a close relationship with them, and we look at Volvo Autonomous Solutions as a driver-as-a-service customer to us. We're excited for them to serve customers and build their business, and we'll continue to work closely with them.
On the financial differences, whether we're doing Aurora Driver for freight selling a TaaS or a DaaS business, or working with Volvo Autonomous Solutions, we have gross margin targets to run the business. We look at the cost structure to support each business and the necessary margins. We consider them together. Inputs and costs differ slightly across models, so we evaluate each independently and then add them up to match our overall projections.
Our next question is from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer.
Can you talk about what you're seeing from Roush from a takt time perspective in terms of production and validation that gives you comfort around the scale up to 1,000 trucks a year?
Roush has pedigree and experience doing finishing work for OEMs at scale, which is part of why we selected them. We're still early in the ramp, but they're familiar with the work, we engage with them regularly, and we have a high degree of confidence they'll come together.
On takt time, this is a dedicated facility with dedicated stations and an assembly-line flow. It will be highly efficient. We focus less on takt time and more on the number of stations and trucks we can build per week, and we match that to the supply of Aurora Driver hardware kits we'll have coming forward.
You obviously are focused on the trucking market, but given the sophistication of the platform and learning cycles you've demonstrated, are you evolving your thinking about the ability to serve other markets or carve out other applications as separate growth drivers?
We believe the Aurora Driver and the capabilities we've built will translate to other markets. Right now, the trucking market offers strong precision and opportunity for us. We are starting to think about where else to apply this and the right timing to invest in other spaces, but delivering excellence in trucking remains our top priority.
Our next question is from Scott Group with Wolfe Research.
It's Cole on for Scott. Can you size roughly how many trucks carriers intend to put onto their balance sheets in 2027 following some of your customer negotiations around the DaaS model?
I don't think there's more to share beyond what we've said: with the MOU with Hirschbach, they're expecting to put 500 tractors into their fleet over '27 and '28. We'll share more as we can.
Maybe on the OEM side, do you think OEM appetite to scale autonomous is keeping up with your targets? What's the risk you might shift to a more Transportation-as-a-Service dominated model going forward?
Those are different questions. On whether OEMs can keep up: I believe market demand will encourage OEMs to produce vehicles to meet that demand if customers see the benefits. Demonstrating value will generate pull with OEM partners. On pivoting toward a Transportation-as-a-Service business: not from where we see today. Our approach focuses on building autonomy systems while partnering with companies great at their own domains. We prefer to support companies like Werner, Hirschbach, and Schneider and stay focused on autonomy, which is how we can have the biggest impact.
Our next question is from Michael Latimore with Northland Capital Markets.
In terms of launching new routes, can you discuss the time to launch a new route? Do you expect that to continue to shrink? Can you quantify where it is now versus where it would be optimally?
We're focused on where customers want us to operate, which will drive route expansion. There is a lot of excitement around routes out of Laredo given nearshoring, and we're supporting customers there. The cost and time to build new routes will continue to decrease. It's not a major concern for driving scale over time. You'll see us pick up more routes as customer demand drives it through the back half of this year and beyond.
How many routes do you expect to have by year-end?
We've shared that we expect to be expanding into the Sunbelt through year-end. We haven't been specific about the number of routes.
On the Detmar program, any additional opportunity or expansion from where you are now?
As we prove our value and demonstrate support, we expect increased demand. We're excited to have started driverless operations between their endpoints and will update as that relationship builds.
Our next question is from Itay Michaeli with TD Cowen and Company.
On Aurora Driver 2, can you talk more about the degree of performance improvement in the new generation, given both hardware and software upgrades, and whether that performance improvement is safety-related or expands ODD coverage?
It drives both cost reduction and important performance and ODD expansion capabilities. We wouldn't have put anything on the road we didn't believe was safe. The extra range from the FirstLight LiDAR allows us to react sooner, particularly at night, which is a big advantage. Conditions in which we can operate continue to expand, which better serves our customers.
As a follow-up, what are your latest thoughts on remote assistance and on-site support costs over the next 12 to 18 months from experience in recent quarters? And how are you thinking about insurance costs and how they're treated in customer agreements?
On remote assist and on-site support, we continue to see positive trends in deployment and how that translates to the rate at which we need human intervention. That will drive the cost of delivering the Aurora Driver, and we're excited for that trend. We're on track delivering a product that meets our business objectives.
Because we are the DOT holder today for our Transportation-as-a-Service business, we carry insurance for all our trucks. We have good rates on a per-truck basis because of system safety performance. While still limited in track record, we have a strong safety track to leverage and will expand upon that. When we shift to Driver-as-a-Service, this is an opportunity for both sides: for us to have coverage associated with the Aurora Driver itself, and for customers to have increased confidence, reduce incidents, and improve safety coverage. It's a win-win.
Our next question is from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs.
You talked about leaving the year with 200-plus driverless trucks and transitioning to DaaS next year. How should we think about your ability and willingness to add trucks beyond that into 2027 and beyond, and how might that impact your cash use per quarter targets for 2026 going into 2027?
In 2027, it will be a transition year moving from primarily Transportation-as-a-Service to primarily Driver-as-a-Service over the course of the year. We may add more trucks in 2026 under the TaaS business. As we do, we generate more revenue but expect a lower margin for TaaS versus DaaS. We'll manage the transition customer by customer.
We haven't provided guidance for 2027 cash use and capital expenditures, but we have projections. It's not an overnight shift; it's customer-by-customer. We have that in our forecasts for liquidity. We've shared before we're willing to support up to 500 test trucks if needed, though we don't expect it to be that many. We have flexibility in our modeling and financing to support growth.
How are you thinking about adding other functions like operation in other weather conditions and hauling different trailers? Any color on progress given your plan to expand with customer demand?
We continue to expand operating conditions. The vehicle already has a broad operating environment; one of the things we'll add toward the end of this year is operation in light snow and cold weather, which will be an important enabler. We support a fairly broad set of trailers needed by customers. Adding a trailer isn't a big deal; we take safety seriously and go through a deliberate process to validate it, but it's not a material amount of effort.
Our next question is from David Vernon with Bernstein Research.
This is Justine Laufer on behalf of David Vernon. First, it looks like the number of driverless trucks expected by year-end has gone from 'more than 200' mentioned last quarter to this quarter's presentation saying just 200 trucks. Has something changed with build rates or deals that shifted that outlook down slightly?
Justine, I wouldn't read too much into the phrasing. We're fully allocated to 200, and we have the flexibility to go above that. If we get to 201, 202, or 205, that's not our primary concern. We're matching supply with customer demand. We'll have more trucks built than that, but we also need development trucks and spares for scheduled maintenance and to backfill. So don't read too much into the exact wording.
Understood. And can you help us think about the economic impact of these commercial deals being announced? When you put out press releases about new deals like Hirschbach or Value Truck, how should investors frame the revenue impact? Can you discuss the difference between the revenue impact of TaaS versus DaaS deals?
TaaS deals have higher per-mile revenue because it's the full service; we've said that's in the $2-plus range, whereas DaaS is targeting the $0.85-plus range. There's a substantial revenue difference but also a substantial difference in cost and margin. In terms of announcements, we're fully allocated to 200 trucks. 200 trucks at year-end equals roughly an $80 million revenue run rate for the TaaS business. So by the end of the year, before adding 2027 trucks, we'd have a contractual rate roughly equal to an $80 million revenue run rate. For us, moving from the start of the year to that run rate represents hyper growth.
Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. This does conclude today's conference call. We thank you again for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.