Lingyi Auto erhält erneut eine Finanzierung in Höhe von 1,2 Milliarden Yuan und will der "Tesla" im Schwerlastwagenbereich werden | Exklusivbericht von 36Kr

Lingyi Automobile

Text | Xiao Man

Editor | Li Qin

36Kr has learned that Lingyi Automobile, a new energy intelligent heavy - truck company, has completed a new round of financing of 1.2 billion RMB. This round of financing was jointly led by Puquan Capital (the only industrial investment platform under CATL), Momenta, and NIO Capital. Anhui Lingtong Group, Fangguang Investment, Yifeng Capital under Temasek, Joy Capital, Shenneng Chengyi, and Blue Lake Capital followed the investment, and the old shareholder Huoshui Capital continued to follow the investment.

This is the second round of financing completed by Lingyi Automobile within the past six months. In mid - 2025, the company just completed a Series A financing of 500 million RMB. The cumulative amount of financing in two consecutive rounds exceeded 1.7 billion RMB.

Founded in 2022, Lingyi Automobile is a startup company that simultaneously focuses on new energy heavy - truck vehicles and autonomous driving technology. The company was co - founded by Huang Zehua, the former co - founder of TuSimple, Zhang Hongsong, the former general manager of Sinotruk and vice - president of Foton Daimler, and Zhang Wei, the former executive director of CNHTC and executive vice - president of Foton Daimler. Currently, the team has nearly 300 people.

Before starting his business, Huang Zehua worked in the North American team of TuSimple. From being involved in technology to starting his own business, Huang Zehua's greatest experience is that when it comes to autonomous driving heavy - trucks, one must first be deeply rooted in the industry and start by reconstructing a complete vehicle product.

Since its establishment, Lingyi Automobile has launched two new energy heavy - truck products, "Jingzhe" and "Xiaoman". As of the end of 2025, the company's cumulative sales were close to 1,600 units. In the second half of 2025, the sales volume increased by nearly 300% compared with the previous period. It is one of the fastest - growing companies in the new energy heavy - truck track.

"To make intelligent heavy - trucks, one must first start with heavy - trucks."

When Huang Zehua returned to China to start his business, the first practical problem he faced was the company's positioning.

In the extremely vertical and closed field of heavy - trucks, companies that simply sell algorithms lack the support of truck hardware. Vehicle manufacturers have their own plans, and parts suppliers have their own rhythms. It is very difficult for a startup company with only algorithms to ask the other party to modify the vehicle architecture to match its sensor layout.

Huang Zehua realized at that time that there was a lack of a company that focused on product development and technology in the heavy - truck industry. On the first day of Lingyi Automobile's establishment, Huang Zehua had already decided that without mastering the vehicle platform, the so - called intelligence could only be an "add - on".

In order to achieve this in - depth synergy, Lingyi Automobile started a forward - looking design from the vehicle architecture level. It carried out full - dimensional self - research and development in areas such as battery - chassis integration, electric drive axle architecture, and thermal management systems. This approach of integrating software and hardware is essentially to lay a solid foundation for autonomous driving at the hardware level. Without this foundation, even the best algorithms are like building a house on a sandpile.

This is a path that extremely tests the organization's patience. In the traditional and heavy - duty heavy - truck industry, establishing a complete vehicle business system is as difficult as reinventing the wheel.

Traditional heavy - truck enterprises are more like integrators of the supply chain. The role of vehicle manufacturers is largely to undertake the final assembly. Huang Zehua compared this model to the computer city in the early days: it is not difficult to assemble a machine that can run, but it is completely different in terms of difficulty to create a product like a MacBook that is highly integrated from the underlying logic to the ultimate experience.

This "assembly model" could still be maintained in the fuel era, but it has strong limitations in the era of new energy and intelligence. The "converting fuel vehicles to electric vehicles" path of traditional automobile enterprises often simply replaces the engine with a battery pack. It is still limited by the inherent architecture of the traditional fuel platform, difficult to be compatible with the new - generation technology, and has inherent shortcomings in terms of space, safety, and energy efficiency.

Lingyi Automobile attempts to break this integrator logic. Through forward - looking development, it precisely calculates every joule of energy and every kilogram of weight of the truck. For example, Lingyi pioneered the battery - chassis integration architecture, where the battery is directly integrated into the chassis; it independently developed an intelligent control system to achieve vehicle - level intelligent torque control, energy management, and thermal management; it is equipped with the industry's first mass - produced four - in - one integrated electric drive axle, which integrates the motor, gearbox, axle, and power take - off, greatly improving the transmission efficiency; the vehicle uses a T700 high - strength steel integrated frame and a 710L high - strength steel frame, with the strength increased by 25% - 100% and the weight reduced by 20% - 30%. In addition, the vehicle pre - installs sensors and wire - controlled redundancy for L4 intelligent driving, enabling hardware to be plug - and - play and software to be upgradeable.

Last year, Lingyi Automobile delivered about 1,200 vehicles throughout the year, crossing a key node. According to Huang Zehua, Lingyi Automobile's annual sales target for 2026 is 5,000 units, and it will achieve break - even at that time.

"To become the Tesla in the heavy - truck field."

Huang Zehua believes that for automobile enterprises, it is crucial to master the design and R & D capabilities of core component systems. This is also the concept of "VERTICAL integration" put forward by Tesla. In Lingyi Automobile's strategic vision, building cars is just the first step. Its value lies in:

Firstly, by providing a reliable hardware foundation, it solves the problem of high failure rates of heavy - trucks, thereby improving the user experience, promoting the implementation of intelligent driving, and achieving better matching of software and hardware;

Secondly, it can continuously accumulate a large amount of real - world operation data, which feeds back to the running - in and iteration of the unmanned driving model, forming a data flywheel effect;

Thirdly, as an important commercial fulcrum for the enterprise, while bringing abundant funds, resources, and talents to support the R & D of intelligent driving, it also enhances the enterprise's value and profitability, achieving experience optimization and scale expansion.

Huang Zehua predicts that around 2030, autonomous driving will truly enter the unmanned era.

Currently, the road transportation market in China is extremely fragmented. Millions of small fleets form the capillaries of the industry. Since there is a limit to human management, when the scale exceeds 10 vehicles, the management cost will increase exponentially. However, when vehicles become an "unmanned asset", it can break through the bottlenecks of management, safety, and efficiency, enabling transportation enterprises to obtain economies of scale, reduce capital costs and operation and maintenance costs, form a transportation capacity pool, and better adjust supply and demand. The economies of scale brought about by this integration will completely reshape the logistics efficiency in China and even the world.

The foundation of unmanned heavy - trucks is data accumulation and vehicle model iteration. The barriers in this track are extremely high, and the players will be highly concentrated.

Lingyi is the earliest and most determined enterprise in the heavy - truck field to layout the end - to - end route. Currently, each new energy intelligent heavy - truck sold is continuously accumulating real - world operation data in commercial operation, which has the potential to provide scenario - based and large - scale practical data support for intelligent driving and unmanned driving business.

For Lingyi Automobile, starting from new energy heavy - trucks, accumulating autonomous driving capabilities, and finally building an unmanned transportation network is a path with high certainty but also full of thorns.

But what Huang Zehua values is the dual wave of intelligence and electrification currently faced by this track. "This disruptive change can give birth to a world - class enterprise in the truck industry," he said.

In Huang Zehua's vision, Lingyi's goal is to become the Tesla in the heavy - truck field.

Since the early days of starting his business, Huang Zehua has been thinking about two questions: "Why do we need a company like Lingyi?" and "What value does this company bring to this industry?" In this process, Huang Zehua believes that whether in terms of intelligent driving or new energy, the current truck industry lacks a benchmark or a "catfish" like Tesla, and this is exactly what Lingyi wants to do.

"From the perspective of the end - game of autonomous driving heavy - trucks, the four elements of vehicles, brains, data, and business forms are all indispensable. Looking at the current intelligent heavy - truck track, there are very few enterprises that have all four elements. To become the best company in this industry, Lingyi needs to down - to - earth and insist on doing difficult but correct things," Huang Zehua said.