Pony Zhixing is still accelerating the development of Robotruck The trillion market has attracted many players to bet

Per reporter: Cui Zhiming Per editor: Pei Jianru

Despite a series of incidents in the United States such as a recall and a re-examination by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Pony Zhixing's self-driving exploration has not stopped.

"This year, Xiaoma Zhika (Xiaoma Zhixing's truck business) will cooperate with China Foreign Transport (601598. SH) to build a fleet of intelligent driving vehicles, the specific landing of smart trucks will be more than 100 units. A few days ago, the relevant person in charge of Xiaoma Zhixing (that is, Beijing Xiaoma Zhixing Technology Co., Ltd.) said in an interview with the "Daily Economic News" reporter.

Previously, there were media reports that in September last year, Xiaoma Zhixing merged the truck research and development team into the autonomous passenger car research and development team; Xiaoma Zhika has about 80 people in China, and only more than 10 people are left after the adjustment, and the truck team of the US research and development center is almost all disbanded. However, judging from the response of the relevant person in charge of the above-mentioned Xiaoma Zhixing, the relevant business line of its truck automatic driving project has not shrunk at present, and it is very likely to become the focus of the commercialization of Xiaoma Zhixing's automatic driving technology.

Image source: Daily Economic News Infographic

"With the focus of research and development on 'virtual driver' technology and the construction of a smart logistics platform, Xiaoma Zhika will work closely with more logistics service providers, tier 1 suppliers, and vehicle manufacturers to exert the effect of the smart logistics ecosystem." The relevant person in charge of the above-mentioned Xiaoma Zhixing told the "Daily Economic News" reporter.

In fact, at present, not only Xiaoma Zhixing, Waymo, Baidu and other companies are exploring the feasibility of commercialization in the field of self-driving trucks, and Tucson, which has been listed, has more than 20 customers in the United States and nearly 7,000 self-driving truck reservations, which also makes the industry more optimistic about the prospects of autonomous truck commercialization to a certain extent.

A "R&D brain" drives "two legs" to run

"Robotaxi (self-driving taxis) and Robotruck (self-driving trucks) are the two core business segments of the company, and this year the company will continue to promote the commercial application of autonomous driving technology in The Robotaxi and Robotruck fields." The relevant person in charge of the above-mentioned pony Zhixing told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the pony Zhixing will use a "research and development brain" to drive Robotaxi and Robotruck to run on two legs.

In September last year, Xiaoma Zhixing was exposed to merge the truck autonomous driving research and development team into the passenger car research and development team to shrink its business. At that time, Xiaoma Zhixing said that the company should concentrate resources on doing important things, and the efficiency of independent research and development of the truck team is low; considering that the passenger car automatic driving technology and truck automatic driving technology have commonalities, it is more efficient to research and develop together.

"In the second half of last year, the company's structural adjustment to the R&D team was to integrate all the company's R&D resources to create a 'virtual driver' that can achieve autonomous driving, support the development of various businesses through 'virtual driver', and maximize the company's R&D synergy." Pony Zhixing said.

However, after this business adjustment, Pan Zhenhao, head of autonomous driving technology in the truck department of Xiaoma Zhixing, and Sun Haowen, head of the domestic autonomous driving PnC (planning and control) group, have left one after another; Zhao Ruixuan, the former head of investment and financing of Xiaoma Zhixing, founded a company called "Xingjiao Technology" in July last year, and the company's entrepreneurial direction is to build electric trucks covering L2+ to L4 autonomous driving.

Image source: Per reporter Sun Lei photographed (data map)

In fact, the congestion of the self-driving truck track has not been alleviated by the restructuring of the business structure of Pony Zhixing, on the contrary, more and more players are already moving forward on the track. According to public information, in addition to Xiaoma Zhixing, at present, there are Wenyuan Zhixing (Guangzhou Wenyuan Zhixing Technology Co., Ltd.), Zhijia Technology (Suzhou Zhijia Technology Co., Ltd.), Xijing Technology (Shanghai Xijing Information Technology Co., Ltd.), Mainline Technology (Beijing Mainline Technology Co., Ltd.), Feibu Technology (Hangzhou Feibu Technology Co., Ltd.), Tucson Future (Beijing Tucson Future Technology Co., Ltd.), There are more than ten unicorn players such as Si Nian Zhi Driving (Beijing Si Nian Zhi Driving Technology Co., Ltd.), and the number of players in the Field of Robotaxi and Robobus has exceeded the sum of the number of players in the field of Robotaxi and Robobus.

Industry analysts believe that in the face of the commercialization "moat" that Baidu Apollo has built in the field of Robotaxi and Robobus, these unicorn companies have chosen to commercialize in the relatively easy Robotruck field, or more practical.

And Pony Zhixing has not slowed down the exploration in this field. On March 7 this year, Xiaoma Zhixing announced the completion of the first closing of the Series D financing, with an overall valuation of US$8.5 billion. Xiaoma Zhixing said that this round of financing funds will be mainly used for the expansion of the scale of Robotaxi and Robotruck fleets, global testing and operation, mass production and commercial deployment of autonomous driving technology, so as to promote the commercialization process and mass production of autonomous driving in the field of passenger cars and commercial vehicles.

It is understood that at present, the joint venture company established by Xiaoma Zhixing and Sinotrans, Qingluo Logistics (that is, Qingxiao Logistics Technology Co., Ltd.), has begun official operation on April 1. As of the end of March this year, Xiaoma Zhixing's self-driving trucks have completed 21,072 tons of commercial freight, and the number of autonomous driving miles has reached 101307 kilometers. Xiaoma Zhixing said that it will continue to increase investment in the truck business in the future.

The road to commercialization is not smooth

At present, there are roughly five main business lines in the autonomous driving industry: Robotaxi (self-driving taxi), Robobus (self-driving bus), Robotruck (self-driving truck), unmanned transportation projects in mines and ports. The first two business lines are in the open scene, Robotruck is in the semi-open scene, and the last two business lines are in the closed scene, so their commercial landing difficulties are gradually decreasing from high to low.

At present, after the early technological development and capital market reshuffle, the current autonomous driving industry has entered the "second half" of the industry competition, and how to achieve commercialization and large-scale mass production has become the key point of the unicorn's competition.

At present, the mainstream consensus in the industry is that the large-scale commercialization of passenger car autonomous driving is still too early, in contrast, the truck as a 100% operation tool, its unmanned urgency is higher than that of passenger cars, while the use of trucks is more at high speed, and there are fixed routes, which also makes automatic driving technology can land faster. Therefore, many companies currently entering the field of autonomous driving have set their sights on the field of Robotruck.

"2024-2025 will be the beginning of a real inflection point for the entire autonomous driving industry," said Embark CEO Rodrigues, especially in the trucking industry, where the huge potential market demand, at least in excess of $700 billion.

But like Robotaxi, the commercialization of Robotruck also needs to open up multiple links such as technology, vehicle, operation and scenario. Therefore, companies in it also need to derive a variety of business models according to their own judgment of the industry, their own resources and advantages.

At present, there are two main camps in the commercial landing industry for Robotruck: one is the L4 firm route faction represented by Tucson Future and Xiaoma Zhixing, and the other side is the pragmatic route faction represented by Wincher Technology, advocating starting from the L3 level, first large-scale landing vehicle regulation level, front-loading automatic driving system for mass production. But no matter which route, for the domestic logistics and transportation industry, customers only care about whether the goods can be delivered on time and safely, and the cost should be low enough, and they do not care about what tools are used to deliver. "Companies need to figure out what advantages to use to compete with traditional logistics and transportation models." Xu Xianjie, founder and CEO of Sotorian, said that Robotruck's commercial exploration has just begun.

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