Pony.ai, a globally leading autonomous driving company, said on Thursday that it is partnering with China's Sany Heavy Industry to explore the autonomous truck market.

Pony.ai said its joint venture with the top heavy equipment manufacturer's subsidiary, Sany Heavy Truck, will start small-scale deliveries of robotrucks from this year.

The trucks produced by the joint venture will be powered by Pony.ai's autonomous driving controller, built on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-chip.

They have finished the first prototype, which was built on Sany's new EV truck platform, and it has already started road testing.

Mass production of Level 4 trucks will start in 2024 and within a few years the joint venture's annual production will rise to around 10,000 trucks, said Pony.ai.

The partnership's autonomous truck product portfolio will include a mix of new energy vehicles and fuel-based ones, with the aim to increase the proportion of electrified trucks in the future.

"SANY has industry-leading heavy truck manufacturing technology and is pioneering the architecture of new energy heavy trucks, intelligent network connections, and other key areas," said James Peng, Pony.ai's co-founder and CEO.

"Integrating Pony.ai's core autonomous driving technologies with the capabilities of SANY enables our joint venture to create a successful intelligent truck and logistics ecosystem for L4 autonomous trucking."

Liang Linhe, chairman of Sany Heavy Truck, said this partnership between Sany and Pony.ai is the ultimate collaboration between the truck's body and the truck's brain, so they will make it possible to mass produce high-level autonomous trucks.

The truck market is substantial. In 2021, heavy truck sales in China exceeded 1.3 million units. Pony.ai said autonomous trucks can cut energy consumption by 10 percent to 20 percent compared with conventional trucks.

Once mass production is achieved, the partners expect the penetration rate of Level 4 trucks in China's heavy truck market to increase steadily, said Pony.ai.