TuSimple said the new funds were part of a round of fundraising
that was oversubscribed and reached a total of $215 million.
The company's new investors include Chinese alternative
investment firm CDH Investments, Hong Kong-based investment firm
Lavender Hill Capital and Korean auto supplier Mando Corp.
TuSimple said the latest investments bring its total funding so
far to $398 million.
That same round of funding included an investment by UPS
Ventures, the venture capital arm of United Parcel Service Inc.
TuSimple is also conducting road tests for UPS's supply-chain
business on a busy stretch of highway covering a little over 100
miles (160 km) between Phoenix and Tucson.
TuSimple's other investors include Chinese online media company
Sina Corp and U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp.
Companies from Silicon Valley tech firms to traditional
carmakers are racing to put fully commercial self-driving
vehicles on the road. Efforts by robotaxis companies such as
General Motors Co unit Cruise and Uber Technologies Inc have
stumbled because it is difficult and costly to develop
self-driving cars capable of anticipating and responding to
humans in urban areas while picking up and dropping off
passengers at random locations, at random times.
But self-driving trucks are seen as an easier proposition as
most run consistently on predictable, revenue-generating highway
routes around the clock, often early in the morning when driving
conditions are ideal.
"Our goal is still to have a factory-produced (self-driving)
truck by the 2023 time frame," TuSimple Chief Financial Officer
Cheng Lu told Reuters.
Until the company has its own specially developed truck on the
road, the startup's aim is to expand the service it is currently
running for 18 truck freight customers in the United States
using retrofitted trucks.
TuSimple currently has a driver and engineer in each truck cab
on freight runs while its self-driving technology is tested out.
TuSimple also ran a two-week test for the U.S. Postal Service
earlier this year transporting mail across three southwestern
states.
(Reporting by Nick Carey in Detroit; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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