Pony.ai announced on December 27th that PonyTron, its autonomous trucking business unit, formed a joint venture with Sinotrans, part of China Merchants Group and one of China's leading logistics and freight forwarding companies. The two companies will work together to build a smart logistics network featuring autonomous driving trucking technologies. The joint venture is expected to commence operations in early 2022 with an intelligent logistics fleet consisting of over 100 trucks.

Over time, this fleet size is expected to grow substantially, incorporating cutting edge autonomous driving technologies, along with sophisticated logistics technology. In June 2021, PonyTron and Sinotrans launched a pilot program testing autonomous driving technologies for long-haul logistics, laying a solid foundation for the new joint venture.