Pony.ai's Autonomous Trucks to Enter European and Middle East Markets in the Next Two Years

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 14, Pony.ai released its Robotruck globalization strategy during the IAA Transportation in Hanover, Germany, planning to expand its autonomous truck business to European and Middle East markets within the next two years. At the same time, the company jointly unveiled a fourth-generation L4 autonomous electric heavy truck with GAC Livan, with the new model planned to enter mass production in 2026 and to be deployed for scenarios including trunk line logistics, dedicated line transportation, and port transportation.

The newly released model is developed on the GAC Livan T9 pure electric heavy truck platform and is equipped with Pony.ai's fourth-generation L4 autonomous driving system. The vehicle's steering, braking, communication, power supply, computing, and perception systems all adopt redundant architectures. The autonomous driving kit is configured with 9 lidars, 3 millimeter-wave radars, and 13 cameras to form 360-degree perception coverage, and uses the same domain controller as Pony.ai's seventh-generation Robotaxi.

Pony.ai disclosed that compared with the previous generation product, the material cost of this model's autonomous driving kit has decreased by 70%, and the estimated transportation cost per ton-kilometer is reduced by 30%. Combined with a vehicle drag coefficient of 0.4Cd and energy efficiency algorithms, the vehicle's overall energy consumption is expected to be 10% lower than that of traditional heavy trucks. Pony.ai and GAC Livan signed a strategic cooperation agreement on April 16, 2026, and the two parties completed vehicle testing and validation and advanced to the official release stage in about 5 months.

Pony.ai began laying out autonomous trucks in 2018. Its products currently cover heavy and light commercial vehicles, and the fourth-generation Robotruck is advancing toward large-scale production. The company has already operated hundreds of autonomous trucks in China, with some vehicles having entered the stage of operation without safety drivers; in Europe, the company is communicating with government departments and port authorities regarding testing permits.

According to this globalization plan, Robotruck's overseas business will continue to use the autonomous driving technology, commercial operations, and partner model that Pony.ai has formed in China, and will advance in combination with the overseas operating system already established by its Robotaxi business. Pony.ai currently conducts Robotaxi operations or cooperation in markets including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Croatia, Luxembourg, Singapore, and South Korea. In August, the company also announced the expansion of its cooperation with Uber in Europe, planning to deploy more than 2,000 Robotaxis in 5 European cities and extend the related cooperation to the Middle East market.