TuSimple has established a partnership with ZF to develop and commercialize technology for autonomous trucks, covering the some of the largest markets like North America, Europe, and China.

The companies will co-develop production-quality technologies including cameras, LiDAR, radar, steering, and ZF’s automotive-grade central computer ZF ProAI. ZF will also support TuSimple’s pre-production driverless autonomous system and will serve as the default supplier for their production-ready system for commercialized vehicles.

“Working side-by-side with ZF to refine and integrate our production-ready technology has allowed us to optimize our hardware stack and focus on scaling these technologies to make it possible for autonomous ready trucks to be mass produced,” said Chuck Price, chief product officer at TuSimple.

As part of the partnership, ZF will contribute engineering support to validate and integrate TuSimple’s autonomous system into the vehicle.

“A key success factor for virtual driver software is to ensure the system is based on an automotive grade level, including component development and production. The combination of ZF automotive system competencies and TuSimple’s virtual driver software will create the first commercial-ready automotive grade autonomous truck technology platform,” said Torsten Gollewski, executive VP of autonomous mobility systems at ZF.

TuSimple currently operates a fleet of more than 40 autonomous trucks, has 18 contracted customers, and makes 20 autonomous trips between Arizona and Texas for companies like UPS every week. The company plans to start driverless operations in 2021.