TuSimple Holdings, Inc. is an American autonomous trucking company, based in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, California, with offices in Arizona, Texas, and China. It was founded in 2015 by Xiaodi Hou and Mo Chen. Initial financial backers include

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German Automotive industry, motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a ...

, United Parcel Services, and U.S. Xpress Enterprises. The company was the first autonomous trucking company to go public on the

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composite index in April 2021. TuSimple and its leadership are currently under investigation by the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

(FBI),

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

(SEC), and

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS, commonly pronounced "Cifius" ) is an inter-agency committee of the United States government that reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. companie ...

(CFIUS) on suspicions of illicit

technology transfer Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform invent ...

History

In April 2021, the company raised over US$1 billion in an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

, leading to a valuation of almost $8.5 billion. In early 2022, the company announced that it had been running trucks without human drivers on over 550 miles of public roads between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. This practice distinguishes the company from its competitors, which operate trucks with human safety drivers to take over when necessary. The company stated that it is the first company to "operate fully driverless heavy-duty trucks." The company also announced that it planned to expand autonomous freight services to Texas by the end of 2023.

2022 U.S. federal investigations

Safety issues

On May 26, 2022, the U.S.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA ) is an agency of the U.S. federal government, part of the Department of Transportation. It describes its mission as "Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes" rela ...

launched an investigation of an April 6, 2022 accident in which one of the company's autonomous trucks crashed into a concrete barrier while on

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally pl ...

near Tucson. Company officials blamed the accident on "human error," but former employees and experts in the field of autonomous vehicles suggest that there were issues with the company's technology.

Illicit technology transfer

In October 2022, the company's CEO, Chief Technology Officer, and co-founder, Xiaodi Hou, was fired by the company's board, which cited a "loss in trust and confidence" in Hou's judgment in connection with an alleged sharing of confidential information with a Chinese company, Hydron Inc. Hydron is a hydrogen truck startup founded by Mo Chen, who co-founded TuSimple with Hou. TuSimple's Chief Operations Officer, Ersin Yumer, was named interim CEO. Hou responded to his ouster by stating that he would be "vindicated." The FBI, the SEC, and CFIUS are investigating TuSimple on suspicions of illicit

to Hydron in China.

References

External links

* {{Autonomous cars and enabling technologies Electric trucks Self-driving car companies Truck manufacturers Electric vehicle manufacturers Electric vehicle industry Companies based in California