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Day: 6 July 2023

Accident-Free Trucking by Autonomous Driving

Posted on by David Priestman

Inceptio Technology, a Chinese developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks, announced that the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System has powered more than 40 million kilometers of accident-free trucking on China’s highways. This latest milestone underlines the safety and reliability of Inceptio’s full-stack autonomous driving solution, as well as its accelerating commercial uptake.

Inceptio’s L3 autonomous trucks have been in commercial operation since late 2021. Working closely with two of China’s top OEMs, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle and Sinotruk, Inceptio has shipped hundreds of mass-produced heavy-duty trucks designed from the ground up for full integration with the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System. Major customers including Budweiser, Nestlé, JD Logistics, and Deppon Express have deployed Inceptio trucks across a nationwide line-haul logistics network in China.

Inceptio’s solution brings significant benefits to every segment of the freight hauling ecosystem. The Company’s focus on mass production ensures that L3 autonomous trucks are sufficiently reliable for OEMs to produce and highly affordable for fleet operators to procure and operate, while its advanced technical features significantly increase driver safety and enable end-customers to receive goods at lower shipping costs.

“We are incredibly proud of the stellar performance record that Inceptio trucks have amassed over the past two years.” said Julian Ma, founder and CEO of Inceptio Technology. “Across 40 million kilometers of commercial operations, our Inceptio Autonomous Driving System has achieved a highly satisfactory on-time arrival rate for our customers with a perfect safety record. The Inceptio R&D team and the autonomous driving system itself are learning a tremendous amount from our fast-growing trove of operational data, and these insights will be invaluable as we speed up commercialization of our L3 solution and continue to hone our driverless solution. We look forward to sharing these achievements with industry partners as we explore opportunities to deploy our cutting-edge technology globally.”

Autonomous Driving System

Inceptio has successfully mass-produced a fully integrated solution to power the next generation of autonomous heavy-duty trucks. The Company’s focus on pre-loading its systems during the production process ensures significantly greater safety, reliability, durability, and regulatory compliance compared to an aftermarket approach.

With ‘safety first’ as its top design principle, Inceptio has collaborated with more than 50 industry partners to solve the most difficult challenges unique to the automation of heavy-duty trucks, including much greater size, weight, reaction distances, response times, and variations in vehicle parameters. Inceptio’s innovation achievements include:

World-leading algorithms
 Perception – Ultra long-range 3D sensing technology holds the industry record with an error rate of less than 5% at a distance of 1,000 meters
 Planning & Control – The core algorithm sets a performance benchmark for the industry with an average lateral control error within 5.5 cm
 Fuel efficiency – Algorithms optimize fuel economy at every level, resulting in 3-7% fuel savings over the most fuel-efficient human drivers

Full-stack software and hardware development
 Fully self-developed autonomous driving software
 Fully self-developed Autonomous Driving Control Unit with 262 KDMIPS + 256 TOPS of computing power
 The industry’s first fully redundant drive-by-wire chassis, including redundant steering, braking, and power supply systems
 Automotive-grade autonomous driving hardware kit offering triple-redundant sensor configuration and fully redundant computing unit
 An advanced human-machine interaction system with auditory, visual, and tactile feedback for human operators

Inceptio Technology is China’s leading developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks. Its flagship technology is the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System, a proprietary full-stack solution. Inceptio partnered with leading OEMs to roll out the industry’s first mass-produced L3 autonomous trucks in late 2021. These trucks are operated by customers including Budweiser, Nestlé, JD Logistics, and Deppon Express across a nationwide line-haul logistics network in China. Inceptio is at the cutting edge of developing fully driverless trucks, and in 2022 became the first company to receive a public road-testing permit for driverless autonomous heavy-duty trucks in China.

Accident-Free Trucking by Autonomous Driving

Posted on by David Priestman

Inceptio Technology, a Chinese developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks, announced that the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System has powered more than 40 million kilometers of accident-free trucking on China’s highways. This latest milestone underlines the safety and reliability of Inceptio’s full-stack autonomous driving solution, as well as its accelerating commercial uptake.

Inceptio’s L3 autonomous trucks have been in commercial operation since late 2021. Working closely with two of China’s top OEMs, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle and Sinotruk, Inceptio has shipped hundreds of mass-produced heavy-duty trucks designed from the ground up for full integration with the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System. Major customers including Budweiser, Nestlé, JD Logistics, and Deppon Express have deployed Inceptio trucks across a nationwide line-haul logistics network in China.

Inceptio’s solution brings significant benefits to every segment of the freight hauling ecosystem. The Company’s focus on mass production ensures that L3 autonomous trucks are sufficiently reliable for OEMs to produce and highly affordable for fleet operators to procure and operate, while its advanced technical features significantly increase driver safety and enable end-customers to receive goods at lower shipping costs.

“We are incredibly proud of the stellar performance record that Inceptio trucks have amassed over the past two years.” said Julian Ma, founder and CEO of Inceptio Technology. “Across 40 million kilometers of commercial operations, our Inceptio Autonomous Driving System has achieved a highly satisfactory on-time arrival rate for our customers with a perfect safety record. The Inceptio R&D team and the autonomous driving system itself are learning a tremendous amount from our fast-growing trove of operational data, and these insights will be invaluable as we speed up commercialization of our L3 solution and continue to hone our driverless solution. We look forward to sharing these achievements with industry partners as we explore opportunities to deploy our cutting-edge technology globally.”

Autonomous Driving System

Inceptio has successfully mass-produced a fully integrated solution to power the next generation of autonomous heavy-duty trucks. The Company’s focus on pre-loading its systems during the production process ensures significantly greater safety, reliability, durability, and regulatory compliance compared to an aftermarket approach.

With ‘safety first’ as its top design principle, Inceptio has collaborated with more than 50 industry partners to solve the most difficult challenges unique to the automation of heavy-duty trucks, including much greater size, weight, reaction distances, response times, and variations in vehicle parameters. Inceptio’s innovation achievements include:

World-leading algorithms
 Perception – Ultra long-range 3D sensing technology holds the industry record with an error rate of less than 5% at a distance of 1,000 meters
 Planning & Control – The core algorithm sets a performance benchmark for the industry with an average lateral control error within 5.5 cm
 Fuel efficiency – Algorithms optimize fuel economy at every level, resulting in 3-7% fuel savings over the most fuel-efficient human drivers

Full-stack software and hardware development
 Fully self-developed autonomous driving software
 Fully self-developed Autonomous Driving Control Unit with 262 KDMIPS + 256 TOPS of computing power
 The industry’s first fully redundant drive-by-wire chassis, including redundant steering, braking, and power supply systems
 Automotive-grade autonomous driving hardware kit offering triple-redundant sensor configuration and fully redundant computing unit
 An advanced human-machine interaction system with auditory, visual, and tactile feedback for human operators

Inceptio Technology is China’s leading developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks. Its flagship technology is the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System, a proprietary full-stack solution. Inceptio partnered with leading OEMs to roll out the industry’s first mass-produced L3 autonomous trucks in late 2021. These trucks are operated by customers including Budweiser, Nestlé, JD Logistics, and Deppon Express across a nationwide line-haul logistics network in China. Inceptio is at the cutting edge of developing fully driverless trucks, and in 2022 became the first company to receive a public road-testing permit for driverless autonomous heavy-duty trucks in China.

Concerns over Human Rights in Supply Chains

Posted on by David Priestman

More than two-thirds of chief executives at British companies are concerned about human rights issues in their supply chains, research has suggested. A survey, commissioned by procurement consultancy Proxima, surveyed 1,000 UK CEOs about their approach to supply chain issues.

It found that 67% are concerned with potential issues around human rights and labour rights. Concern is highest in the construction sector (77%), leisure and hospitality (77%), retail (72%), and the food and beverage manufacturing sector (70%), the survey found.

It comes as companies come under increasing scrutiny for emissions and human rights issues across their operations. According to the survey, almost half of UK bosses – 49% – said they expect to spend more time focussing on supply chain issues in the next 12 months.
It found that 42% are considering “onshoring” – moving their entire supply chain to their home country – as a way to prevent disruption and improve transparency.

Meanwhile, 36% said they are looking at “nearshoring” – moving supply chains to countries closer to the UK.

Simon Geale, executive vice president and chief procurement officer at Proxima, said: “Addressing human rights issues across the supply chain is a huge challenge for businesses and it is clearly high up on the agenda for CEOs. We’ve seen a number of businesses fall victim to human rights issues and, as we see increased scrutiny from customers and regulators, supply chain transparency is going to become increasingly critical. This is the emerging priority for CEOs at a time when business leaders are spending more time than ever tackling supply chain issues.”

The UK private sector has seen movement to tackle supply chain issues in recent years through initiatives like the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, Scope 3 Peer Group, AIM-Progress and the Sustainable Procurement Pledge.
Unilever has been using satellite tracking to monitor deforestation and behavioural patterns around key factories while IMB has developed a supply chain solution blockchain technology, used by companies like Vodafone.

James Butcher, CEO of Supply Pilot, a tech platform that allows companies to better engage with their suppliers, said: “The supply chain disruption continues and this is why so many CEOs are focused on their supply chains. But this unfortunately is at the expense of progress on sustainability as reflected in the poor strategies on supply chain decarbonisation. I believe this is because of the internal narrative reflecting it as an either/or decision on where to focus, whereas a good supplier engagement programme focused on more sustainable and responsible procurement can address both the E and the S of ESG but also delivers more resilient supply chains.”

Neil Robson (pictured), partner at Katten UK, added:

“The fact that 67% of polled UK CEOs are concerned about human rights issues in their supply chains is testament to the fact that ESG is now well-and-truly coming of age. The “S” – the social element of the Environmental, Social and Governance framework used by firms and investors to assess an organization’s business practices – has long taken second or third place to environmental sustainability issues and good governance. However, given ESG’s evolution from ethical investing and ‘corporate social responsibility’, the social element has to remain in focus.

“Concerns with potential issues around human rights/ labour rights in the supply chain seem to have been growing in recent years, following requirements for UK businesses to adhere to the UK Modern Slavery Act, which has been in force since October 2015. As a world-leading piece of legislation, it sets out a range of measures on how modern slavery and human trafficking must be dealt with in the UK and focuses (at section 54) on ‘Transparency in Supply Chains‘. As the survey notes, addressing human rights issues across the supply chain is a huge challenge, but nonetheless supply chain transparency is a potential area of risk that is becoming increasingly critical – especially where those supply chains are overseas, opaque and unclear. Businesses that hold themselves out as ESG-compliant must address their sustainability and good governance, but they must also understand their impact on their entire supply chain and do their best to ensure they are doing the right thing for all concerned.”

Concerns over Human Rights in Supply Chains

Posted on by David Priestman

More than two-thirds of chief executives at British companies are concerned about human rights issues in their supply chains, research has suggested. A survey, commissioned by procurement consultancy Proxima, surveyed 1,000 UK CEOs about their approach to supply chain issues.

It found that 67% are concerned with potential issues around human rights and labour rights. Concern is highest in the construction sector (77%), leisure and hospitality (77%), retail (72%), and the food and beverage manufacturing sector (70%), the survey found.

It comes as companies come under increasing scrutiny for emissions and human rights issues across their operations. According to the survey, almost half of UK bosses – 49% – said they expect to spend more time focussing on supply chain issues in the next 12 months.
It found that 42% are considering “onshoring” – moving their entire supply chain to their home country – as a way to prevent disruption and improve transparency.

Meanwhile, 36% said they are looking at “nearshoring” – moving supply chains to countries closer to the UK.

Simon Geale, executive vice president and chief procurement officer at Proxima, said: “Addressing human rights issues across the supply chain is a huge challenge for businesses and it is clearly high up on the agenda for CEOs. We’ve seen a number of businesses fall victim to human rights issues and, as we see increased scrutiny from customers and regulators, supply chain transparency is going to become increasingly critical. This is the emerging priority for CEOs at a time when business leaders are spending more time than ever tackling supply chain issues.”

The UK private sector has seen movement to tackle supply chain issues in recent years through initiatives like the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, Scope 3 Peer Group, AIM-Progress and the Sustainable Procurement Pledge.
Unilever has been using satellite tracking to monitor deforestation and behavioural patterns around key factories while IMB has developed a supply chain solution blockchain technology, used by companies like Vodafone.

James Butcher, CEO of Supply Pilot, a tech platform that allows companies to better engage with their suppliers, said: “The supply chain disruption continues and this is why so many CEOs are focused on their supply chains. But this unfortunately is at the expense of progress on sustainability as reflected in the poor strategies on supply chain decarbonisation. I believe this is because of the internal narrative reflecting it as an either/or decision on where to focus, whereas a good supplier engagement programme focused on more sustainable and responsible procurement can address both the E and the S of ESG but also delivers more resilient supply chains.”

Neil Robson (pictured), partner at Katten UK, added:

“The fact that 67% of polled UK CEOs are concerned about human rights issues in their supply chains is testament to the fact that ESG is now well-and-truly coming of age. The “S” – the social element of the Environmental, Social and Governance framework used by firms and investors to assess an organization’s business practices – has long taken second or third place to environmental sustainability issues and good governance. However, given ESG’s evolution from ethical investing and ‘corporate social responsibility’, the social element has to remain in focus.

“Concerns with potential issues around human rights/ labour rights in the supply chain seem to have been growing in recent years, following requirements for UK businesses to adhere to the UK Modern Slavery Act, which has been in force since October 2015. As a world-leading piece of legislation, it sets out a range of measures on how modern slavery and human trafficking must be dealt with in the UK and focuses (at section 54) on ‘Transparency in Supply Chains‘. As the survey notes, addressing human rights issues across the supply chain is a huge challenge, but nonetheless supply chain transparency is a potential area of risk that is becoming increasingly critical – especially where those supply chains are overseas, opaque and unclear. Businesses that hold themselves out as ESG-compliant must address their sustainability and good governance, but they must also understand their impact on their entire supply chain and do their best to ensure they are doing the right thing for all concerned.”

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