Self-driving tech firm Pony.ai plans to ship robotrucks in China

BEIJING — Self-driving tech start-up Pony.ai introduced Thursday it plans to mass produce autonomous driving vans in China with gear manufacturing large Sany Heavy Industry.

Annual manufacturing is ready to achieve about 10,000 vans “inside a couple of years,” in keeping with a press launch. Small-scale deliveries are set to start this yr and subsequent, with mass manufacturing on account of begin in 2024.

The vans are slated to come back with “Stage 4” autonomous driving know-how, which might enable full self-driving on highways and concrete roads, in keeping with Pony.ai. “L4” is a part of an trade classification system that designates full self-driving underneath particular circumstances.

Below present guidelines in China, the robotrucks will not have the ability to function absolutely autonomously.

Pony.ai mentioned it solely has testing permits in Beijing and Guangzhou for autonomous vans. However the firm mentioned it expects to function L4 vans in China as rules develop.

Pony.ai’s autonomous driving system makes use of the Nvidia Drive Orin chip, similar to several Chinese electric car companies that supply drivers assisted-driving know-how.

Some, however not all, of the deliberate vans shall be “new vitality automobiles,” a class that features electrical automobiles.

Pony.ai declined Thursday to share extra details about price per truck and whether or not the vans would solely be out there in China.

Sany has places of work globally, whereas Pony.ai additionally operates within the U.S. The robotruck mass manufacturing deal is a part of a strategic three way partnership between Pony.ai and Sany Heavy Truck, a Sany subsidiary.

Analysts typically count on robotrucks to take off more quickly than robotaxis as a result of extra uniform nature of truck routes alongside highways. Each day truck drives sometimes final for hours versus far shorter taxi rides.