SAN JOSE, CALIF.-- January 20, 2021 -- Velodyne Lidar, Inc. (Nasdaq: VLDR, VLDRW) today announced a strategic partnership with Beijing Trunk Technology Co., Ltd. (Trunk.Tech). The companies will collaborate in developing next-generation autonomous heavy trucks and to accelerate commercialization of driverless trucks in China’s logistics market.

Velodyne and Trunk.Tech will cooperate on lidar-enabled products that meet the demanding requirements of high-speed transportation logistics. These solutions will strengthen object awareness and detection capabilities of unmanned heavy trucks and are designed to promote rapid, large-scale vehicle production in a cost-effective, efficient way. Trunk.Tech has close cooperation with commercial vehicle OEMs to produce driverless trucks and ensure the vehicles comply with vehicle safety regulations.

Trunk.Tech is the first company in China to independently develop SAE Level 4 driverless trucks, based on its own powerful driverless hardware and software systems. It uses Velodyne’s lidar, including Ultra Puck™, Puck™ and Velarray H800 sensors, as core sensor hardware in its autonomous trucks. Trunk.Tech selected Velodyne due to sensor quality, performance and mass production capacity.

“Autonomous trucks can supplement labor gaps, save fuel costs and enhance logistics, as well as improve transportation safety and help reduce truck accident rates,” said Dr. Zhang TianLei, CEO, Trunk.Tech. “Velodyne sensors, combined with our multi-sensor fusion algorithms, enable trucks to achieve high-precision, long-range real-time sensing to support autonomous driving on complex road environments. Velodyne has the expertise and manufacturing scale to help us transform trucking and our companies share a strong focus on vehicle safety.”

“Trunk.Tech is leading the industry in demonstrating how autonomous vehicle technology, powered by lidar, is bringing major efficiency and safety advances to trucking,” said Anand Gopalan, Chief Executive Officer, Velodyne Lidar. “We look forward to working closely with Trunk.Tech on creating next-generation autonomous driving solutions that dramatically improve how goods and materials move in logistics networks.”

Trunk.Tech: Deep Experience in Autonomous Trucking

In the last few years, Trunk.Tech has deployed Velodyne lidar sensors on dozens of driverless trucks that have been delivered to commercial customers. Currently, these vehicles are operating autonomously at ports in China on a 24/7/365 basis to support operations.

Since winning China’s first commercial road test license in 2018, Trunk.Tech driverless trucks have carried out a large number of practical road tests on China roadways. It completed the country’s first high-speed test for fully autonomous driving. In 2019, Trunk.Tech won key national research and development program projects, becoming the first driverless technology company to receive right-of-way support.

Trunk.Tech is actively building a broad intelligent logistics ecosystem to support autonomous trucking in China. The ecosystem includes Trunk.Tech and Bosch Group at the driverless truck terminal. It also includes strategic partners China Heavy Automobile, Uberco, Ulse Automotive and Geely Commercial Vehicles for collaboration to promote mass production.