Baidu-Backed DeepWay Unveils Smart New Energy Heavy Duty Truck

DeepWay, a joint venture company created by Baidu and Lionbridge, on Friday unveiled Xingtu, a smart new energy heavy duty truck with computing power of more than 500 TOPS and ultra-long-distance sensing capabilities of further than one kilometer. This announcement marks Baidu‘s entry into the multi-trillion dollar global freight market.

DeepWay focuses on the development and manufacturing of smart new energy heavy duty trucks. In the future, the firm will have fast access to Lionbridge’s logistics network, enabling the commercialization of autonomous driving technology in freight scenarios.

Wan Jun, Chairman and CEO of Lionbridge and CEO of DeepWay, said, “DeepWay has developed a quick-swap solution for the battery in which freight drivers swap out their battery in six minutes.”

The new Xingtu model features DeepWay’s home-grown highway intelligence system (HIS) and is equipped with 10 onboard cameras, five millimeter wave radars and three infrared detectors. With the help of advanced algorithms, Xingtu can achieve end-to-end autonomous driving – from perception to planning – within 100ms. When carrying a full load of 49 tons, Xingtu’s custom-developed 450kWh battery pack can travel up to 300km on a single charge.

Wan Jun said, “Xingtu will be commercialized in June 2023. It is expected that the vehicle will operate more than 4.8 billion kilometers in the next five years.”

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“Baidu Apollo’s intelligent driving products have cooperated with 600 vehicle models from more than 70 auto companies, covering areas such as family cars and self-driving buses. However, autonomous driving has not been applied in the field of commercial vehicle logistics, and its huge development potential needs to be explored,” said Li Zhenyu, Vice President of Baidu and general manager of the intelligent driving business group. Wan Jun has also said that while freight drivers’ labor costs are rising, unmanned driving has seen more demand in the field of long-distance trucks.