Bengaluru start-up Minus Zero partners Ashok Leyland to deploy autonomous trucks

Bengaluru-based autonomous driving technology startup Minus Zero has announced a strategic alliance with Ashok Leyland, one of the country’s leading commercial vehicle manufacturers

The long-term partnership aims to revolutionise commercial trucking through the deployment of autonomous solutions at scale.

The initial focus of this collaboration will be on developing tailored autonomous trucking solutions for ports, factory operations and corporate campuses. Future endeavours include expanding into hub-to-hub applications and long-haul trucking, subject to evolving regulatory frameworks surrounding autonomous driving.

As per the understanding, Minus Zero will integrate its autonomous driving platform leveraging its pioneering nature-inspired AI technology, into Ashok Leyland’s fleet of commercial vehicles. The collaboration aims for safe and scalable adoption of autonomous driving in commercial vehicles.

Last year, Minus Zero demonstrated the capabilities of its autonomous driving platform in a closed environment through a purpose-built vehicle, zPod.

With global regulations and infrastructure evolving to support autonomous driving, the partners state that the collaboration can extend to offer joint product offerings to international markets.

Gagandeep Reehal, CEO and Co-founder, Minus Zero said: “Ashok Leyland brings decades of experience in delivering high quality products at scale and we’re excited to partner with them in this journey of accelerating autonomous driving in India and globally.

With our Nature-inspired AI, we are bringing a paradigm shift by building Foundational AI models for autonomous driving. This partnership marks the beginning of India’s Autonomous Driving story.”

N Saravanan, Chief Technology Officer, Ashok Leyland said: “Ashok Leyland has been looking for ways to reduce the cost of logistics in India in line with the Government’s National Logistics Policy. We see a role for autonomous driving in select sectors in achieving this and we have been partnering pioneering startups in this area.

Minus Zero’s capabilities and plans impressed us, and we are excited to be working with them to develop India-specific solutions, that can be scaled globally. We see spin-off benefits in developing cost-effective active safety solutions to reduce the road accidents.”