In the race to develop driverless cars, Volkswagen AG and Hyundai Motor Co. are placing bets on a Silicon Valley startup founded a year ago by the former leaders of autonomous vehicles at Google and Tesla.

Aurora Innovation Inc. on Thursday announced separate partnerships with the two auto makers, signaling the emergence of a potential rival to Waymo, the Google self-driving experiment that has morphed into a business unit of corporate parent Alphabet Inc.

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