Pony.ai and SANY set up JV to develop subsequent era of autonomous vehicles for mass manufacturing

Autonomous driving know-how firm Pony.ai introduced a strategic three way partnership with SANY Heavy Truck (SANY), a subsidiary of SANY Heavy Trade, China’s number-one heavy gear producer and the third-largest heavy gear producer globally.

Pony.ai and SANY will collaborate to create a world-leading autonomous truck model. The 2 firms will deeply combine Pony.ai’s digital driver with SANY’s technical accumulation within the area of wire-controlled chassis and automobile improvement to collectively develop high-end heavy vehicles which are automotive-grade and have L4-class redundancies.

The three way partnership plans to begin small-scale deliveries of the robotrucks in 2022 and 2023. Mass manufacturing of the L4 truck will begin in 2024 and inside a couple of years will attain an annual manufacturing of round 10,000 vehicles.

The primary prototype of the autonomous truck was constructed on SANY’s new EV truck platform and has already performed street testing. The JV’s autonomous truck product portfolio will embrace a mixture of new vitality automobiles (NEVs) and fuel-based, with the intention to extend the proportion of NEV vehicles sooner or later.

The addressable marketplace for trucking is substantial; in 2021 alone, heavy truck gross sales in China exceeded 1.3 million models. As soon as mass manufacturing is achieved, the companions anticipate the penetration fee of L4 vehicles in China’s heavy truck market to extend steadily.

Pony.ai has at all times been dedicated to growing autonomous driving software program and {hardware} options in-house. In June, Pony.ai launched its autonomous driving controller (ADC) designed for automotive-grade mass manufacturing. The ADC is constructed on the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-chip and can absolutely allow the vehicles produced by the three way partnership.

The partnership announcement follows on the heels of the lately shaped Cyantron three way partnership between Pony.ai and Sinotrans, which commenced operations in April and goals to reinforce the digitalization and intelligence of the transportation course of.

In response to Pony.ai’s robotruck operations expertise, primarily based on automobile planning and management in addition to route planning, autonomous vehicles can save 10%-20% of vitality in contrast with standard vehicles. As well as, with the gradual growth of the JV’s new vitality merchandise, by 2030, the three way partnership’s vehicles will cut back CO₂ emission by a couple of million tons.