Aurora Innovation is bringing driverless trucks to Berkshire Hathaway's restaurant supply chain

Supplies including perishable food bound for chain restaurant customers will be hauled using the Aurora Driver, Aurora's SAE Level 4 self-driving system, as part of the expanded commercial relationship. Aurora has approved driverless operations on routes between Dallas and Houston, with plans to add routes between McLane distribution centers across the U.S. Sun Belt by the end of the year, the companies said.

Over the course of the pilot, Texas routes equipped with the Aurora Driver accumulated more than 280,000 miles of autonomous operation and fulfilled 1,400 restaurant deliveries, with Aurora reporting 100% on-time performance. At its peak, the supervised pilot was running back-and-forth trips between Dallas and Houston twice a day, every day of the week.

The arrangement uses a hybrid model: Aurora's autonomous system handles the long-haul middle mile between distribution centers, while McLane drivers manage last-mile delivery to customer locations. "Autonomous technology helps us drive greater efficiency across the supply chain, while our drivers remain focused on the critical last mile — and continuing to serve as the face of our company to customers," Susan Adzick, president of McLane Restaurant, said in a statement.

Although the operations are classified as driverless, a human observer currently remains in the cab on these routes at the request of truck manufacturer Paccar $PCAR. The observer does not operate the vehicle; the Aurora Driver carries full responsibility for all driving tasks, according to CNBC. Aurora has plans to deploy trucks from Volkswagen subsidiary International LT starting this quarter that will not require observers, with 200 such trucks expected by year-end. Aurora declined to say whether McLane intends to adopt that fleet, according to CNBC.

Neither company disclosed how many trucks or individual loads the driverless arrangement would cover; the only detail provided was that Aurora Driver-equipped vehicles would keep running between Dallas and Houston several times each day.

The Temple, Texas-based company dates to 1894 and runs more than 80 distribution centers with reach into nearly every U.S. zip code. Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.B acquired McLane from Walmart $WMT in 2003, according to CNBC. Aurora is McLane's only current self-driving truck partner.

Beyond the McLane deal, Aurora has been pushing into new corridors across the region. A Fort Worth-to-Phoenix lane stretching roughly 1,000 miles — a distance that would require a human driver to stop — is already in service, and a partnership with Volvo Autonomous Solutions covering a Dallas-to-Oklahoma City corridor was disclosed earlier this week, according to CNBC.