EVwire brief: Pony.ai and GAC Lingcheng's first mass-produced T9 Robotrucks have rolled off the production line in Guangzhou, with the Level 4 autonomous, battery-electric heavy truck now in volume production.
The first batch came off the line at GAC Lingcheng's Conghua plant on October 29, and the partners are aiming to build 1,000 units within the next two to three years, Guangzhou Daily reported. The initial trucks will go into testing and operation on trunk-line logistics, dedicated-route freight and port transport.
Pony.ai announced the milestone on LinkedIn, calling it a major step toward scaling its Gen-4 heavy-duty L4 Robotruck. Here's Pony.ai's update:
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The T9 Robotruck is built on GAC Lingcheng's T9 battery-electric heavy truck, pairing Pony.ai's Gen-4 autonomous driving kit with a fully redundant drive-by-wire chassis. Steering, braking, communications, power, computing and sensing all have redundant backups, while nine lidars, three millimeter-wave radars and 13 cameras give the truck 360-degree coverage with no blind spots.
Pony.ai says the kit's bill-of-materials (BOM) cost is 70% lower than the previous generation, and that the truck uses 10% less energy than conventional trucks, helped by the T9's 0.4 drag coefficient. The companies expect transport costs per ton-kilometer to fall by about 30%.
A video of the trucks was shared by Pony.ai on X:
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Context:
The T9 went from agreement to production line in about six months. Pony.ai and GAC Lingcheng, which Pony.ai refers to as GAC Commercial Vehicle in its releases, signed a strategic cooperation agreement on April 16, wrapped up vehicle testing and validation within five months, and gave the truck its global debut at IAA Transportation 2026 in Hannover, Germany, in September. He Xing, Pony.ai's Vice President and Head of its Robotruck business, said at the debut that volume production was the next step:
"The global debut of the T9 autonomous heavy-duty truck with GAC Commercial Vehicle marks another important step in accelerating the mass production and commercial deployment of Pony.ai's Robotrucks."
The rollout from here is set to come in stages, with hundreds of units going into road testing and demonstration use in 2027, followed by sales, leasing and freight-capacity services scaling into the thousands in 2028 and 2029, per Chinese reports. Pony.ai also plans to take its Robotrucks into Europe and the Middle East within two years, a region where it is already lining up its robotaxis, from Uber testing in London to a potential role in Bolt and Stellantis' Greater Paris plans.
Source: Pony.ai on LinkedIn, Pony.ai, Guangzhou Daily, China Automotive News
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