Aurora was founded by Anderson, the former head of Tesla’s Autopilot program; Chris Urmson, who helped start Google’s self-driving car program, and Drew Bagnell, who led autonomy and perception at Uber’s Advanced Technology Group in Pittsburgh. Urmson and Bagnell have strong ties to Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh robotics companies.The company has offices in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif. Anderson said Aurora wanted to have a presence in Pittsburgh to benefit from the immense talent in the city. That decision has paid off, Anderson said.
“Our Pittsburgh team is world class,” Anderson said, adding that the engineers in the city bring a depth of experience that has been a real boon to Aurora.
Aurora started testing a fleet of autonomous vehicles last year in Pittsburgh. Anderson expected that fleet to grow and to eventually include vehicles under development for VW and Hyundai.
More>>