TuSimple Inc., a global autonomous driving technology company headquartered in San Diego, California, with operations in Arizona, Texas, Europe, and China, entered into a global partnership on Thursday with DHL to adopt, integrate and scale TuSimple’s autonomous trucking technology into DHL’s operations.
TuSimple has received 100 orders from DHL for the autonomous trucks being co-developed by TuSimple and Navistar in the U.S., where another milestone was reached recently: TuSimple’s partnership with UPS had completed 160,000 autonomous miles driven since 2019.
It has also been active in China’s autonomous trucking scene.
At the 4th China International Import Expo (CIIE) held in Shanghai early last month, TuSimple and Swedish truckmaker Scania jointly showcased a Scania S500 tractor fully loaded with TuSimple autonomous trucking solutions. Scania’s parent company TRATON Group had reached a global partnership agreement with TuSimple in September 2020 to jointly develop self-driving trucks using Scania trucks. Now that Scania is closing in on start of truck production in China next year, there is a lot to look forward to in terms of localizing that global partnership in China. In March 2021, TuSimple became eligible to conduct testing of self-driving trucks hauling cargo in several designated area in Shanghai as part of the city’s intelligent connected vehicle pilot demonstration. In June 2020, it received five permits to conduct testing of autonomous trucks on open roads in Shanghai, mostly in ports and logistics parks, and in October 2018, it was actually the first ever company to receive a permit to test autonomous trucks in China, accumulating nearly a quarter million km in testing as of March 2021.
Pony.ai also reached a huge milestone earlier this month when one of its autonomous driving trucks from its PonyTron autonomous trucking unit began testing on a stretch of the Beijing-Taipei Expressway (also known as the G3) in the southern suburbs of Beijing.
The Chinese self-driving startup became the first in China to conduct testing of highly automated trucks on open expressways, where policies allow. PonyTron had received the first batch of permits in July allowing for the testing of autonomous trucks on expressways from the Beijing Intelligent Networked Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone, where its autonomous trucks can be tested on six different stretches of national and urban expressways totaling 143 km.
The autonomous trucks used for testing are based on the J7 truck platform from FAW Jiefang, China’s leading heavy-duty truck manufacturer. Powered by Pony.ai’s proprietary “virtual driver” technology and retrofitted with multiple sensors like LiDAR, radar and camera, the trucks are able to achieve Level 4 autonomous driving (with safety drivers) on open expressways, the company claims.
Pony.ai, which recently celebrated its 5th anniversary, has moved fast over the past year expanding its autonomous trucking business in addition to its passenger Robotaxi services. In fact, it’s the only pure play self-driving startup involved in both passenger and commercial vehicle businesses. A year ago, it became China’s first company to receive a permit to test autonomous trucks in Guangzhou. This past March, it announced PonyTron, the branding of its autonomous trucking business. A month later in April, it formed a strategic partnership with supplier giant ZF’s commercial vehicle group. Despite a recent shakeup of key management personnel, Pony.ai’s autonomous trucking business seems to be chugging along.
One other pure play autonomous trucking company very active in China is Plus (formerly Plus.ai), which unlike its competitors offers a driver assistance system called PlusDrive like Tesla’s Autopilot that allows the drivers to take their foot off the pedals and hands off the wheel but requires that they pay attention to the road. Plus is working closely with FAW Jiefang and Full Truck Alliance, as well as smart transport and logistics companies in putting FAW Jiefang’s J7 heavy-duty trucks equipped with PlusDriver into operation. In fact, it has worked with Zhito Technology, a self-driving startup founded by FAW Jiefang, to develop what they claim as the world’s first mass produced autonomous truck based on the J7. In September, Plus had delivered the initial production batch of PlusDrive units to FAW Jiefang which will handle installation and leverage its extensive sales and service network to manage the sales and maintenance of the autonomous trucks. So far they thousands of pre-orders for these trucks have been placed by large fleets in China.
Speaking of FAW Jiefang, it’s worth mentioning that it’s the most active Chinese OEM in the country’s autonomous trucking space not only in terms of offering the most popular truck model for retrofitting (akin to the Lincoln MKZ in the passenger AV space) by TuSimple and Plus, but also direct participation through the conception of Zhito Technology, China’s first autonomous trucking startup founded directly by an OEM. Last month, Zhito Technology completed its first round of financing of more than RMB100 million since its inception in August 2019. In July, it became China’s first company to deliver L3 autonomous trucking system following the start of production of a small batch of the FAW Jiefang J7 equipped with this system.
FAW Jiefang, according to Chairman Hu Hanjie, has supplied some 300 J7s to the autonomous trucking industry thanks to the truck model’s chassis X-by-wire control technology and open data platform. Zhito Technology, meanwhile, is focused on two business paths: R&D of smart software and provision of total smart logistics solutions for specific scenarios such as industrial park sanitation and port logistics.
Another company like Zhito Technology but not directly invested by a truck OEM is Inceptio Technology, which was established in 2018 jointly by G7, China’s leading IoT company, Global Logistic Properties (GLP) and NIO Capital. Though in 2019 it did enter into a joint development agreement with leading Chinese truck makers including Dongfeng Trucks, Sinotruck and Foton as well as global tier-1 suppliers such as Knorr Bremse, ZF/WABCO and Bosch aiming to deliver the world’s first L3 mass-production truck by the end of 2021 preloaded with its Xuanyuan autonomous driving system unveiled in March. One of its customers, Deppon Express Delivery, became the first logistics company in China to commercially operate autonomous trucks transporting goods when it put into service an autonomous truck into a dedicated “Singles Day” delivery route in November between Jinan and Shanghai. Inceptio Technology claims that the 880-km route is handled by one driver only but more than 90 percent of the trip is assisted by the Xuanyuan system. The company completed a $270 million Series B financing round led by JD Logistics, Meituan and PAG in August.
Other OEMs active in autonomous trucking include SAIC Motor, China’s biggest automaker, and Geely, China’s leading private automaker.
SAIC Motor, like FAW Jiefang, recently established its own autonomous trucking unit called Youdao Zhitu focused on providing L3 and L4 autonomous trucking solutions and online cargo transport platforms specifically catered to operational needs inside ports and industrial parks. The unit is working with SAIC Motor’s heavy-duty truck subsidiary SAIC Hongyan to develop electric and hydrogen autonomous trucks.
Geely, on the other hand, made a big splash in early November when its commercial vehicle brand Farizon Auto unveiled its next generation smart new energy semi-truck, the Homtruck, with production and first deliveries planned for early 2024. The Homtruck plans to utilize L4 hands-off autonomous drive functions and will also introduce convoying features for longer journeys which allow trucks to communicate with each other to maintain safe speed and distance that will lower operator stress levels. Hardware sensors such as lidar, millimeter-wave radar, ultrasonic radar will be standard equipment along with 5G and V2X communication.
Besides the autonomous trucking pure plays and OEMs or OEM invested autonomous trucking units, suppliers focused on providing L1 or L2 ADAS solutions for commercial vehicles such as Minieye, Jimu Inteilligent, MAXIEYE and Jingwei Hirain have also reaped benefits from the growing heavy-duty truck market as well as implementation of regulations such as requirement that AEB, LDW, FCW and other L2 features must be standard on heavy-duty trucks in China.
These three forces will continue to evolve as China sets on a path to improve overall transport efficiency. China sells about half the world’s heavy-duty trucks. It has 150,000 km of expressways that are continuing to expand. Big foreign truckmakers like Daimler Truck, Scania and Volvo Trucks are all gearing up for local production. And like the U.S. China is also facing a decline of drivers engaged in road cargo transport. These are all favorable factors for the development of autonomous trucking in China.
For the foreseeable future, the aim of autonomous trucking, rather than taking the driver out of the equation, is to make truck driving cool again to attract younger drivers, reduce driver fatigue, increase fuel efficiency, and lower transport cost.
