Ashok Leyland, the flagship company of the Hinduja Group, has announced a strategic partnership with Minus Zero, a Bengaluru based start-up specializing in autonomous driving technology. The goal of this alliance is to create customized autonomous trucking solutions for India. Through this collaboration, they aim to transform commercial trucking by implementing large-scale autonomous solutions.
Ashok Leyland, the city-based heavy commercial vehicle maker, announce that their collaboration with Minus Zero will initially focus on creating autonomous trucking solutions for ports, factory operations, and corporate campuses. They stated that as global regulations and infrastructure develop support autonomous driving, they may expand this collaboration to offer joint products in international market.
“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”, Ashok Leyland Chief Technology Officer N Saravanan said.
Gagandeep Reehal, CEO and Co-founder, Minus Zero said, “Ashok Leyland brings decades of experience in delivering high-quality products at scale and we’re excited to partner with them in this journey of accelerating autonomous driving in India and globally.”
Founded in 2021 by Gagandeep Reehal and Gursimran Kalra, Minus Zero is specialize in constructing Foundational AI Models for autonomous driving. These models are provided as an innovative platform to automotive OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers).
As a leader in the Commercial Vehicle sector, Ashok Leyland is a prominent company within the Hinduja group. It holds the position of being the second-largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India. Additionally, it ranks as the fourth-largest producer of buses in the country and the nineteenth-largest producer of trucks globally.
