Minus Zero has announced a strategic alliance with Ashok Leyland to develop tailored autonomous trucking solutions for ports, factory operations and corporate campuses.

Future endeavours include expanding into hub-to-hub applications and long-haul trucking, subject to evolving regulatory frameworks surrounding autonomous driving. 

At the core of this alliance is the seamless integration of Minus Zero’s industry-first autonomous driving platform leveraging its pioneering nature-inspired AI technology, into Ashok Leyland’s fleet of commercial vehicles.

Leveraging Ashok Leyland’s esteemed product portfolio and safety standards alongside Minus Zero’s expertise in self-driving technology, the collaboration aims for safe and scalable adoption of autonomous driving in commercial vehicles. 

Last year, Minus Zero demonstrated the capabilities of its autonomous driving platform in a closed environment through a purpose-built vehicle, zPod. 

With global regulations and infrastructure evolving to support autonomous driving, this collaboration can extend to offer joint product offerings to international markets.  

“Ashok Leyland has been looking for ways to reduce the cost of logistics in India in line with the Government’s National Logistics Policy. We see a role for autonomous driving in select sectors in achieving this and we have been partnering pioneering startups in this area.

“Minus Zero’s capabilities and plans impressed us, and we are excited to be working with them to develop India-specific solutions, that can be scaled globally. We see spin-off benefits in developing cost-effective active safety solutions to reduce road accidents,” said N Saravanan, chief technology officer, Ashok Leyland.

Pioneers in the Commercial Vehicle (CV) space, Ashok Leyland is a flagship of the Hinduja Group, and is the 2nd largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India, and the fourth largest manufacturer of buses and 19th largest manufacturer of trucks in the world.