Autonomous Logistics Players in China (Part 1)
Robotaxi and automated logistics are considered the two most rapid adoptions of autonomous vehicle technologies at scale. In an earlier article, I went through the robotaxi progress with a few Chinese companies. In this article, I give an overview of the players in autonomous logistics industry of China.
There are mainly 4 categories of logistics:
This is Part One, covering half of the names.
TuSimple 图森未来
Tag: long-haul, L4, US & China
TuSimple, founded in 2015, has completed series D funding this year making a post-money valuation of over $1 billion. As the full-stack L4 solution provider of long-haul trucks, the company believes their biggest strength is the proprietary 1 km perception as well as deep learning software to drive rigs.
On the US market, they claim to have a fleet of more than 50 customized trucks through collaboration with OEMs like Peterbilt and Navistar and a number of contracted customers like UPS to make commercial runs with a safety driver and an engineer in the passenger seat monitoring the autonomous systems. In the future, TuSimple aims to provide “depot-to-depot” service without drivers. In China, they have obtained a license for road test while commercial runs are regulated at this point.
Plus.ai 智加科技
Tag: long-haul, L4, US & China
Founded in 2016, Plus.ai focuses on L4 autonomous driving solutions aiming to transform the commercial trucking industry. The company currently operates in both Silicon Valley and China, with R&D centers and testing vehicles for two countries.
In the US, Plus.ai announced a partnership with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to run public road tests in tough winter conditions, in which the trucks are provided by Navistar and Paccar with Plus.ai solutions installed.
One of their 2019 highlights in China was the joint venture with China’s largest truck OEM FAW Jiefang. The JV aims to commercialize L4 heavy-duty trucks within the next 5 years combining efforts as different roles on the industry supply chain. During the process, they would also produce L2 and L3 trucks to cumulate experience. Plus.ai also partners with Full Truck Alliance, a major player in truck-hailing business in China, or the “Didi for trucks” where the solutions get tested and optimized at scale.
Inceptio Technology赢彻科技
Tag: long-haul, L3, Logistics as a Service (LaaS), China
Inceptio was founded in 2018 to develop/produce autonomous long-haul trucks and ultimately to build a logistics service network by partnering with truck OEMs and logistics players on the China market. They believe the LaaS model powered by AI technologies will not only improve safety but also the operational efficiencies creating commercial value to the current labor-intensive logistics industry.
By far, the company has signed truck-leasing agreement with Jinxin Logistics and Yimidida where logistics service providers would use Inceptio customized trucks to make deliveries to obtain test data and collaboratively optimize the service. Meanwhile, Inceptio showcased the L3 truck at CES Asia in June and plan to mass-produce by 2021 to expand fleets and take more orders.
MoonX 牧月科技
Tag: short-haul, L4
Founded in 2018, MoonX aims to power logistics companies with customized solutions, which could be electric AVs, sensors, autonomous driving systems or HD map. They have converted different models to autonomous vehicles (based on a photo revealed including sedans and light trucks) and have been running tests.
The company mainly targets the delivery routes between rural and urban areas where highway and city roads are both involved. Together with ZTO Express, they are developing a fleet of autonomous trucks and building the operation network. In October 2019, they just obtained commercial license to test the service in a town of Zhejiang province. Official from ZTO predicted by 2021 we could see their autonomous delivery fleets on public roads.
FABU Tech飞步科技
Tag: short-haul, L4
Founded in 2017, FABU Tech has been devoted to L4 autonomous driving solutions using their proprietary AI chips and algorisms combined. Although the solution is supposed to work in all scenarios, their commercialization targets short-haul delivery in cities first.
Since November 2018, they have partnered with EMS and Deppon to run test deliveries using vehicles powered by FABU solutions with a safety driver. By February 2019, they have accumulated 3,600 km test runs with over 60k pieces of goods delivered. The plan was to have 100 operation routes built before 2020.
E-commerce companies Alibaba, JD, Suning, Meituan
Tag: last mile delivery
The leading e-commerce companies have all built their own teams to develop and produce autonomous mini vehicles hoping to improve efficiency and cost related to last mile deliveries as well as AGV for warehouse operation.
Cainiao (Alibaba as biggest shareholder) is the earliest adopter launched 1st generation autonomous delivery van in 2016. The company has been testing in enclosed parks and then extended to public roads. Now it is the 5th generation running deliveries in selected cities.
JD.com followed Cainiao steps closely in 2016 for R&D and road test. In November this year, JD just showcased the delivery van version 4.0 and claimed to mass-produce soon.
Suning.com launched the first version in 2018 and by August 2019, they showcased a new 5G-enabled autonomous delivery van that can be monitored and controlled in the backend at emergencies.
Meituan, online retailer or precisely O2O platform, is aiming to autonomously deliver food. Earlier this year they announced to partner with Valeo, Nvidia and Icona to develop autonomous delivery vehicles. By August, they claimed to have been running test deliveries in selected areas with in-house developed as well as 3rd party vehicles.
The last mile delivery vehicles are relatively small in size and usually running at low speed like less than 10km/h. With about 100m vision ability, the vehicles can do collision avoidance and traffic signal identification quite well according to the medias who observed tests. They are also well connected to the backend to alert issues. But it still requires lots of optimization in order to lower down operational cost. More importantly, e-commerce companies would not achieve cost-efficiency until the vehicles enter mass production and operation.
