Exclusive Disclosure! Z-Truck Secures RMB 1 Billion Strategic Financing, Pioneering a New Track of Cloud-Integrated AI Heavy-Duty Trucks
As a rising leader in the AI heavy-duty truck sector, Z-Truck has secured backing from top venture capital firms including Baidu Ventures (BV), Suzhou Venture Capital, and Lushi Investment. It has also established in-depth “investment + industrial chain” partnerships with renowned industry players such as Horizon Robotics, Chuangyuan Group, and Wan’an Technology. Additionally, the company has received comprehensive financial support from five major state-owned banks, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank. With this, Z-Truck has formed a closed-loop capital strategy integrating equity, debt, and industrial collaboration.
Leveraging the commercial foundation of large-scale product deliveries, Z-Truck is advancing rapidly in the highly differentiated track of cloud-integrated AI heavy-duty trucks. The company aims to build the world’s leading new energy intelligent heavy-duty trucks and enable large-scale commercial operation of “truly unmanned and safe heavy-duty trucks,” driving the accelerated application of Physical AI In Motion (physical AI for transportation terminals) through cutting-edge innovation.
Against the backdrop of China’s deepening Dual Carbon strategy, the green and low-carbon transformation of the transportation sector has become a core driver of new productive forces. The state has explicitly prioritized the development of electric and hydrogen-powered heavy-duty trucks, zero-carbon transport corridors, and the large-scale deployment of intelligent transportation systems integrating vehicles, roads, and clouds. This positions new energy intelligent heavy-duty trucks and autonomous driving at a strategic inflection point, supported by policy, market, and capital tailwinds. In 2025, Z-Truck was recognized as a China Potential Unicorn Enterprise and a Jiangsu Province Dual Innovation Talent Enterprise, ranking among the top three new heavy-duty truck manufacturers by delivery volume.
Leadership Team: Visionary Founders with Elite Backgrounds
Dr. Zhang Lei, Founder & CEO
- Tsinghua University (School of Vehicle and Mobility) – Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorate (recommended admission)
- Founding member of Academician Li Keqiang’s research team (Chinese Academy of Engineering) focusing on AI driving and cloud-vehicle integration
- Author of 10+ core journal papers and holder of 200+ patents
- Former youngest director at China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, overseeing multiple national aerospace projects worth tens of billions of RMB
- Founded Qingzhi Technology (2019), delivering the largest industrial M&A deal in the autonomous driving sector and achieving #1 market share in heavy-duty truck ADAS
Dr. Guo Liqun, Co-founder & CTO
- Top heavy-duty truck technology expert, recipient of Special Government Allowance (State Council), National March 8th Red Banner Pacesetter
- Former chief engineer at FAW Group Technology Center, led R&D for FAW Jiefang’s flagship J7 model (internationally acclaimed performance)
Core Technology & Product Philosophy
Z-Truck’s vision is Technology Powers Future Logistics. Since its inception, the company has adhered to full forward R&D and technological independence, rejecting the transitional “fuel-to-electricity” retrofitting approach. It focuses on lightweighting, low energy consumption, high reliability, and cloud-integrated intelligence, building a robust and irreplicable product foundation.
Dr. Zhang Lei emphasizes: “Fuel-to-electricity retrofitting is a stopgap for traditional commercial vehicle electrification. Constrained by the inherent architecture of fuel platforms, its energy efficiency and intelligent ceilings are clearly defined—and it will eventually be replaced.”
Z-Truck has pioneered a product management system merging automotive-grade standards with aerospace-grade quality rigor, addressing industry concerns over new entrants’ quality. Drawing on aerospace’s extreme lightweighting philosophy, the company delivers direct customer value through higher payloads and profitability, earning industry recognition for its best-in-class curb weight advantage.
The R&D team fully leverages AI agents to independently develop an integrated domain control system covering three electric systems, intelligent chassis, and thermal management, continuously pushing the boundaries of energy efficiency. Z-Truck’s vehicles operate across 10+ provinces (Shaanxi, Henan, Xinjiang, Sichuan, Jiangsu, etc.), serving express delivery, long-haul logistics, and other core scenarios, with tens of millions of kilometers of cumulative customer operation and autonomous driving testing.
Key milestones:
- World’s longest-range hydrogen-electric flagship heavy-duty truck (1,500 km range), mass-delivered to SF Holding
- Only new heavy-duty truck manufacturer with both hydrogen and electric powertrains, boasting the most complete technology roadmap
- Adopts direct sales & service model (vs. traditional dealerships), accumulating data from diverse real-world operating conditions to fuel iterative upgrades for vehicle domain control and autonomous driving algorithms, while strengthening barriers for future unmanned operations—creating a data and commercial flywheel for Physical AI In Motion.
Vision for the Future: Unmanned Heavy-Duty Trucks as a Trillion-Dollar Opportunity
Dr. Zhang Lei’s perspective: “Unmanned heavy-duty trucks represent the next trillion-dollar opportunity, a critical need for logistics cost reduction and efficiency gains, and one of the largest application scenarios for general Physical AI.”
While single-vehicle AI is evolving rapidly with large language models, it faces inherent limitations for heavy-duty truck “true unmanned safety” commercialization and regulation—including beyond-visual-range perception gaps and adverse weather failures. Relying solely on increased computing power and edge-case testing yields diminishing returns.
Z-Truck’s solution: Cloud-vehicle integration with a four-layer collaborative safety architecture:
- Redundant drive-by-wire chassis (hardware foundation)
- Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) (active safety baseline)
- Onboard end-to-end large model (primary decision-making brain)
- Cloud-connected control system (global fallback safety)
This architecture breaks the physical limits of single-vehicle AI, overcomes industry bottlenecks, and realizes true unmanned safety.
Investor Endorsements
Gao Xue, Managing Partner & CEO, Baidu Ventures (BV)
“We are bullish on commercial vehicle intelligentization and connectivity. Z-Truck’s forward-looking layout in full-stack autonomous driving, vehicle domain control, and cloud collaboration—rooted in software-defined vehicles—redefines heavy-duty truck intelligence. BV will support Z-Truck’s algorithm R&D and commercialization of full-scenario autonomous driving.”
Suzhou Innovation Investment Group
“As a unicorn incubated by Tsinghua University Suzhou Research Institute and Suzhou government, Z-Truck leads new energy heavy-duty trucks with its elite team, lightweight/low-energy tech, and comprehensive product portfolio. We will support its growth in Suzhou and industrial collaboration.”
Horizon Robotics Investment Team
“Z-Truck is a promising player in high-end, intelligent, green heavy-duty trucks. We will empower its autonomous driving with our Journey® computing platform, optimizing perception-decision-execution and accelerating L2+++ deployment.”
Deng Zhao, Chairman, Lushi Investment
“As an early investor, we back this Tsinghua-founded team. Z-Truck’s forward R&D platform, lightweighting, low energy use, and cloud integration build a strong tech moat. Its ‘Lightweight Hero’ and ‘Ocean Cruiser’ models deliver superior TCO. We support its tech iteration and national expansion.”
Brand Origin
Dr. Zhang Lei explains: “Z-Truck (载合) derives from Tsinghua’s motto ‘Virtue Carries All Things’ and logistics’ ‘Knowledge and Action Unity.’ Phonetically, it echoes ‘load’ (载荷)—a value symbol understood by logistics, automotive, and aerospace professionals alike.”
