China’s truck industry is buying more driver-assist technology

An article written by Evelyn Cheng for CNBC, in collaboration with Hugo Antoine, technology and market analyst, computing and software, at Yole Intelligence, which is part of Yole Group.

China’s truck industry is finding more reasons to buy vehicles with assisted-driving technology.

It’s a critical step toward monetization in a nascent business that’s drawn many investor dollars, with relatively little to show for it so far.

One broad transformation is that the trucking industry in China is changing from one in which individual drivers dominated, to one with fleets holding the majority share, said Gui Lingfeng, principal at Kearney Strategy Consultants (…).

Analysts at Yole Intelligence are closely watching whether robotruck companies can make good on production and delivery goals set for the next two years.

It’s a $2 trillion market, of which China accounts for about $650 billion to $750 billion and the U.S. slightly more than that, said Hugo Antoine, technology and market analyst, computing and software, at Yole Intelligence, which is part of Yole Group.

“This is the reason why we have many investors invest in this market,” he said. “Because if you have one percent or two percent of this market it is huge.”

However, it remains unclear how quickly regulators will allow fully driverless trucks on most roads, even if operators want to buy them.

“Even when the industry is technically ready, I think in any part of this world the transportation regulator will take another year or even two years, to validate the data and have their own testing before they can issue the driverless license,” Inceptio’s Ma said.

… Read the full article here.

Source: www.cnbc.com