This week, leading new energy heavy-duty truck and intelligent driving startup ZERON made another blockbuster announcement after a year, revealing the completion of a 500 million RMB Series A financing, injecting vitality into the recently somewhat dull financing market. This round of financing was co-led by autonomous driving leader Momenta, Xinghang Venture Capital, and Chentao Capital, with participation from Guofa Wenxin, Loudong Industrial Fund, Deying Capital, Xinjing Fuying, Yuanjing Capital, Caitong Capital, Huoshui Capital, and existing shareholder Tianshan Capital, among others.
Founded in 2022, ZERON boasts two core businesses: native end-to-end autonomous driving software and hardware technology development, and full-stack independent research and development of native new energy intelligent heavy-duty truck technologies. Since last May, when ZERON launched two new energy heavy-duty truck products, “Jingzhe” and “Xiaoman,” equipped with fully self-developed electric drive axles and three-source heat pump systems, it has further rolled out more targeted derivative models based on diverse market demands. With a customer-centric approach, it continuously optimizes performance and reduces operating costs. ZERON’s founder Huang Zehua attributes this rapid iteration capability to the company’s robust independent technological research. Currently, ZERON has delivered nearly 700 units of its two models, with a total operating mileage exceeding 25 million kilometers, ranking among the forefront of new heavy-duty truck players. Notably, at the end of last year, Zhang Wei, former executive director of Sinotruk, joined ZERON, helping to further strengthen its marketing channels and enhance service quality, with remarkable results. After ZERON successfully held a partners’ conference in March this year, over 70 dealers joined its network within just three months, injecting a shot in the arm during a critical period of sales growth. More impressively, the repurchase rate of ZERON’s products in regions such as Henan and Hebei reaches as high as 70%, fully demonstrating that ZERON has gained market recognition for its product quality and customer service.
In addition, although ZERON, which took the lead in announcing its large-model-based end-to-end autonomous driving technology (ZSD) last year, kept a low profile in the first half of this year, it still achieved notable progress. It is reported that ZERON is steadily advancing the research and development of the industry’s first autonomous driving technology based on one-stage end-to-end and multi-modal large models. The so-called “one-stage” means the entire model is an integrated whole, representing a true end-to-end technology. It simplifies the system, fully leveraging the advantages of end-to-end technology to achieve a higher performance ceiling. The multi-modal large model, on the other hand, can fully utilize the knowledge reserve and generalization ability of large language models to efficiently solve the long-tail problems of autonomous driving and accelerate the mass production and implementation of unmanned driving technology.
Furthermore, since last year, ZERON has repeatedly emphasized the view that “scenario-based progression makes commercial vehicles the first stop for mass-produced high-level intelligent driving” on various occasions. Aligning with the inherent operational characteristics of commercial vehicles, ZERON has always advocated starting from the smallest commercial scenarios and gradually promoting the commercialization of high-level autonomous driving through a trajectory from closed to semi-closed and then to open scenarios. This approach appears profound and rational amid the current urgent industry atmosphere where relevant authorities are calling for a “cooling down” on “autonomous driving.”
“I have known Zehua for many years. He has both a keen foresight for advanced technologies and a full sense of awe for science and technology, which is one of the important reasons I am optimistic about ZERON,” said Cao Xudong, CEO of Momenta. It is reported that in late July, vehicles equipped with ZERON’s ZSD system will be delivered to a stainless steel factory in Yangjiang, Guangdong, to start operations.
“We highly recognize the progress ZERON has made in its two core businesses: autonomous driving and vehicle manufacturing. New energy trucks + autonomous driving is a trillion-yuan track, and we believe ZERON will be a leader in it,” said Lai Shengmin, General Manager of Xinghang Venture Capital.
“All new players are now in a stage of accumulating energy and still some distance away from the main table. Our goal this year is to approach the monthly sales of traditional heavy-duty truck manufacturers by the end of the year. In terms of intelligent driving, our goals are more long-term and we are more patient. We strive to implement more scenarios and conduct more technological development and penetration in the next three years, while always ensuring technological leadership and reliability,” Huang Zehua said with confidence regarding the next stage. ZERON’s future performance is also worthy of continuous attention from the industry and the market.
