By Nick Carey
Sept 14 (Reuters) - Chinese self-driving technology firm Pony.ai unveiled a new Level 4 autonomous heavy goods vehicle on Monday at the IAA Transportation trade fair in Hanover, Germany, and said it was talking to European governments and potential customers about road tests on the continent.
The firm's latest self-driving full-electric truck was jointly developed with Chinese state-owned automaker GAC and will start volume production later this year, Pony.ai said.
Level 4 autonomy means
a vehicle can drive itself without a human driver under specific conditions and zones. While Pony.ai has a couple of hundred Level 4 trucks operating routes in China - some entirely driverless, others with human safety drivers - only a handful of countries in Europe have regulations in place to allow self-driving vehicle tests.
"We've already approached several ports and some (European) governments on the topic," of testing, said Pony.ai Vice President He Xing, who heads the company's robotruck business. "We are looking at markets where labour costs are expensive or the labour shortage is severe... which definitely makes Europe an important market for robotic trucks."
Pony.ai said in a statement that its robotruck unit will launch in markets in Europe and the Middle East over the next two years.
The unveiling of the self-driving model comes as a number of Chinese truckmakers have launched or are gearing up to sell fully-electric models in Europe, including EV giant BYD; Geely unit Farizon; China's top-selling electric truck brand Sany; Sinotruk; and startups Windrose and SuperPanther.
Pony.ai is also pushing to deploy robotaxis outside China and is running tests in a couple of European cities including the Croatian capital, Zagreb.
(Reporting by Nick Carey; Editing by Susan Fenton)
