China’s DeepWay, a Baidu-backed company, has unveiled Xingtu, a smart new energy heavy-duty truck featuring ultra-long-distance sensing capabilities of more than 1 kilometre. This announcement marks Baidu’s entry into the USD multi-trillion global freight market.
The first generation of Xingtu is designed to enable L3 self-driving on high-speed freight routes and achieve L4 capabilities on these same routes between 2024 and 2026.
At a full load of 49 tons, Xingtu’s custom-developed 450kWh battery pack can travel up to 300km on a single charge, and charges in just one hour at a 1C current. In addition, DeepWay has also developed a quick-swap solution for the battery, which enables freight drivers to swap out their battery in 6 minute
This new energy heavy-duty truck adds intelligent freight to Baidu’s existing autonomous driving solutions including passenger cars, Apollo Go robotaxis and minibuses, expanding the applications of intelligent driving to industry and business.
In the near term, DeepWay will focus on R&D and manufacturing of smart new energy heavy-duty trucks and promote the commercialization of L4 autonomous driving technology in the China truck freight industry in the coming years.
DeepWay is a joint venture company created by Baidu and Lionbridge in 2020 to focus on the development and manufacturing of smart new energy heavy-duty trucks, offering intelligent driving solutions for the truck freight market.
Yunpeng Wang, vice president and general manager of autonomous driving technology at Baidu, says: “Autonomous driving must use advanced driverless technology to create new products that offer the ultimate experience in order to achieve commercial success. We aim to create value in real-life scenarios such as transporting people, delivery and life services. This new generation of vehicle is by no means just a modified truck – it’s a robot truck.”
The Apollo technology underlying DeepWay’s Xingtu has been developed by Baidu since 2013 and has nearly 8.7 million test miles.
