And so, I expect that to continue. And that is fairly high fidelity. I think that somebody – another vehicle threw a rock up, and it hit the windshield of one of our trucks. We had to report that to DOT. So, I think that provides a level of – a granular level of visibility into events that are happening on the road.
Chris McNally: Much appreciated.
Chris Urmson: Of course.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from Tom White from D.A. Davidson. Your line is now live.
Wyatt Swanson: Hi. This is Wyatt Swanson on for Tom. Thanks for taking our questions. Congrats on opening your first commercial-ready route. Could you maybe give us some more color on what you expect with this route as you get it up and running? You mentioned something like 75 commercial loads per week. So what does that look like over the next 18 to 24 months?
Chris Urmson: Sure. So this is a place where we’ve got facilities in either end for this initial deployment of the technology that we’ll operate between for our customers. At the end of Q3, we were at the point where we’re pulling 75 loads a week. And the guidance we provided in our road map is that we aspire by the end of the year to achieve 100 loads per week on that route. So this is where the Aurora Driver is operating, but we continue to have our commercial driver licensed operators on board as well. This will also ultimately be the first lane that we operate without a driver of the trucks as we’ve – towards the end or at the end of 2024. And over the time between now and then, we expect to continue to increase volume on that route and other routes, but we haven’t provided further guidance on that at this time. And Dave, you…
David Maday: Yes, I think it’s also important to note on this lane, this is an important lane, right? This is our launch lane. And when we talk about commercially representative locations, what that means, is all the operational capabilities, all the things that we need to have happened to operate on this lane exist at the terminal. So, if we need to do fueling, we do that on site as opposed to have to go off-site to do it. If we need to do a calibration of our systems, if we need to do minor repairs, everything is self-contained in there. So you actually can operate an autonomous lane. And this is how we envision and demonstrate this capability and how it will scale over time. We’re determining all the necessary capabilities that you need to have, and we continue to refine that along the way. It also helps build confidence with our customers.
Wyatt Swanson: Got it. Great. That’s really helpful. And then a follow-up to that. What can we expect in terms of opening up additional routes over the next 12 to 18 months as you guys get ready for commercial launch?
Chris Urmson: So today, we also operate on the route between Fort Worth and El Paso, and we’re pulling loads there daily for customers. As we – we’ve provided in the past some kind of general guidance that we expect to expand East to West along that corridor. But I don’t think we can add more specific details today to that.
Wyatt Swanson: Thank you very much.
Chris Urmson: Welcome, thanks for the questions.
Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live.
Mark Delaney: Good afternoon and thank you very much. For taking my question. First on the business side, how are you thinking about contracting loads for your commercial launch by the end of this year? And does the cyclical weakness currently in the freight markets impact what you’re thinking about with respect to entering some contracts independent of what the Aurora Horizon may be capable of?
David Maday: Yes. Hi, Mark, that’s a great question. I think in general, we’re still on track for contracting with our customers at the end of the year. I do think that the cyclical nature and really the depressed market has been a challenge for many of our partners, especially in the FPL space. But I also think you have to give a lot of credit to them. Despite some of the challenges, they’ve continued to work with us. They see the long-term value, and they continue to increase the number of loads. And so we’re working through right now, what our plans are going to look like for contracting through 2025. And so, we’re working and making really good progress on that, and we’ll be able to share more information at the end of the year.
But I would say that the depression of the market has caused some challenges for them operationally, but they see the value in this. And so, they’re still fully and completely excited about wrapping our plan together in the long-term. So thanks.
Mark Delaney: Got it. And then, Dave, one other question for you. Just on the operating expenses and cash use kind of were down sequentially, and you guys have talked about some levels to expect through the commercial launch. But just hoping to better understand the reasons for the sequential moderation in spending levels and perhaps any of this, was it at all timing related and maybe a little bit on the higher end of that range next quarter or any other ways to better frame some of the sequential around spend? Thanks.
David Maday: Yes. I think there was some minor timing adjustments, but most everything as we had planned, right? Like we had a cash use, which was about what we expected. We anticipated Q3, to be a little bit lower. When we guide on the average of 175 to 85, we have to put an allocation, right, because it’s on an average. So, we’ll put like the bonus that we pay, which – in this time period was the second quarter. And next year, we’re anticipated to be in the first quarter. So, there is some allocation of that on the quarterly average. But yes, we did expect this quarter to be right about here. We did have some – again, some minor timing for our contract manufacturing support that we’ve had. But that’s pretty minimal. I think this is more of a testament to the fact that like it’s really important for us to be wise and make sure that we know how to use, and have the right financial discipline.
And we’re really finding a lot of opportunities, to reuse it and to just do things smarter without jeopardizing any of our progress. We would expect Q4, we don’t see big shifts from Q3 to Q4 that would have us super concerned about missing our target for Q4. We still expect to deliver within the target range or better than that for Q4.
Mark Delaney: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Jeff Osborne from Cowen and Company. Your line is now live.
Jeffrey Osborne: Yes. Thank you. Good evening. I was wondering if you could, Chris, just flush out a bit more on the driver Safety Case being closed? The move to Q1 there, was that all due to the incidence that you mentioned before in terms of sideswipe? Or is there sort of a laundry list of edge cases that are rare in society, but that you need to bring out? I was just trying to understand that delay there?
