Trunk.Tech Secures Hundreds of Millions in Strategic Financing, Unmanned Trucks to Enter Global Market | Exclusive Report by 36Kr

36Kr learned that Mainline Technology, an autonomous truck company, recently completed hundreds of millions of yuan in financing. This round of financing was jointly invested by Beijing Shunyi High - tech and High - end Industry Fund, SDIC Chuangyi, Yumei Fund, Xuzhou Industrial Development Group, Xingyin Wealth Management, and Hefei Feidong Industrial Investment.

According to reports, this round of financing will promote the large - scale production of Mainline Technology's core products, drive the further closure of the company's commercial flywheel, and help the company explore more autonomous logistics scenarios.

Mainline Technology was established in 2017. The company focuses on the research and development of L4 - level autonomous driving technology and provides customers with full - scenario logistics intelligent transportation solutions based on autonomous trucks.

As of now, Mainline Technology has delivered and operated nearly a thousand intelligent trucks in total, with an intelligent transportation mileage of nearly 100 million kilometers. The company has cooperated with dozens of logistics hubs such as Tianjin Port, Ningbo Zhoushan Port, Guangzhou Port, Yantai Port, and Hefei Port, including seaports, river ports, and land ports. It has also joined hands with logistics companies such as Debon and STO Express to carry out intelligent truck transportation on the country's core logistics trunk lines.

In the view of Zhang Tianlei, the founder of Mainline Technology, the achievement of these phased commercial results is due to Mainline Technology's consistent efforts to build an all - around autonomous driving enterprise and plan a strategic closed - loop of "technology - product - business".

Zhang Tianlei introduced that in terms of technology, Mainline Technology embraced "BEV + Transformer" early on, as well as current artificial intelligence large - model technologies such as "end - to - end", "VLA", and "VLM". Currently, Mainline Technology is focusing on researching world - model technology, enabling artificial intelligence to learn and iterate rapidly in the virtual world, and then creating an "AlphaGo" in the field of autonomous driving.

Mainline Technology believes that the core value of truck autonomous driving lies in building an intelligent transportation system that can operate independently and collaborate in a cluster. Therefore, the company has proposed a technological evolution path from AiTrucker, an artificial - intelligence virtual driver (single - vehicle intelligence), to Trunk CAFC, an intelligent and connected autonomous driving freight platoon (road train).

Mainline Technology introduced that AiTrucker refers to an L4 - level general autonomous driving system specially designed for intelligent transportation. With an all - around multi - sensor fusion solution, a high - performance central computing platform, and an end - to - end VLA large - model algorithm developed in - house as the core, it can support intelligent driving capabilities from L2 to L4 and has flexible adaptability to commercial vehicle platforms and multi - scenario expandability.

Trunk CAFC is an intelligent and connected autonomous driving freight platoon solution launched by Mainline Technology based on its technological accumulation in single - vehicle intelligence. The core of this solution is to achieve a mixed - platoon driving mode of "intelligent assisted driving of one leading vehicle" and "autonomous driving of N following vehicles" through the in - depth integration of core technologies such as autonomous driving, vehicle - to - vehicle communication, and vehicle - road - cloud collaboration.

Mainline Technology provided a series of data to intuitively show the advantages of this solution: Trunk CAFC can reduce the comprehensive operating cost of the fleet by 20%, improve the energy - saving effect by 18%, and achieve a carbon - reduction benefit of 22%. Therefore, Mainline Technology believes that Trunk CAFC is a reliable intelligent upgrade path for traditional logistics fleets.

"Mainline Technology has also spent a lot of effort in the product mass - production stage," Zhang Tianlei said. Mainline Technology cooperates with more than 20 models of several mainstream domestic automobile manufacturers such as Sinotruk, FAW Jiefang, and Sany Heavy Truck. Therefore, the difficulty in the mass - production stage lies in that Mainline Technology needs to make the "intelligent driving brain" universally and standardly adaptable to more than 20 models and ensure low power consumption and high reliability.

Fortunately, Mainline Technology has overcome the difficulties in engineering implementation and has received "real - money recognition from customers". Zhang Tianlei told 36Kr: "In the past few years, Mainline Technology has been in a leading position in the industry in terms of the delivery and operation of intelligent heavy trucks."

After the mass - production of intelligent heavy trucks, Mainline Technology will deliver them to partners for independent or joint operation. At the same time, Mainline Technology will provide "AI empowerment" for partners in vehicle operation and maintenance, hoping to improve the operation efficiency of single vehicles and reduce the comprehensive operating cost of the fleet.

36Kr learned that the current largest business implementation scenario for Mainline Technology is logistics hubs represented by ports.

Zhang Tianlei said that the company has developed a Trunk Port intelligent port autonomous driving solution and promoted it to dozens of container terminals, land ports, railway ports, steel plants, and other project scenarios around the world, with a cumulative service of more than 8 million TEU of port operation containers.

Among them, Tianjin Port and Ningbo Zhoushan Port are the two benchmark projects of Mainline Technology.

The highway freight scenario is the second most important implementation scenario for Mainline Technology.

In this scenario, Mainline Technology cooperates with commercial vehicle manufacturers and leading customers such as Debon, STO Express, and CMST Smart Logistics to carry out intelligent transportation services such as express delivery and bulk coal transportation.

Currently, Mainline Technology's autonomous driving freight routes cover regions such as the Beijing - Tianjin - Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area, as well as Shandong, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. The cumulative transportation mileage is nearly 100 million kilometers, and the proportion of intelligent driving mileage exceeds 95%.

In the future, Mainline Technology will continue to expand the urban logistics scenario for autonomous freight. The company plans to launch relevant products in several key cities before the end of this year.

Zhang Tianlei told 36Kr that in the long run, the company plans to achieve a revenue ratio of 3:5:2 from the three scenarios of ports (logistics hubs), highway freight (logistics trunk lines), and urban distribution logistics (logistics end - points).

The overseas market is also a key part of Mainline Technology's strategic layout. The company has delivered nearly a hundred autonomous trucks in many countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South America.

Compared with the domestic market, Mainline Technology's delivery volume in the overseas market is still in its infancy. However, Zhang Tianlei believes that under the background of the country's Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese enterprises going global together can learn a great deal of overseas - expansion experience from each other. Therefore, Mainline Technology will surely see a rapid increase in its overseas market volume.

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