Self-driving car company TuSimple (Tucson Future) recently announced the terms of the IPO submitted to SEC. The company is expected to become the first share of autopilot.

Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co are the lead underwriters of this IPO. Tucson plans to list on Nasdaq in the future under the ticker symbol "TSP", the first self-driving company to focus on the trucking market. Given the recent favorable market environment, especially in terms of technology and the SaaS ecosystem, Tucson hopes to raise money in the open market through traditional IPO in the future, avoiding the recent SPAC craze.

The California-based company claims its vision is to revolutionize the $4 trillion global freight market, according to the Smur1 document. To this end, Tucson will develop self-driving technology specifically designed for semi-trucks to empower world-class shippers, carriers, railway companies, freight brokers, fleet asset owners, and truck hardware partners. Tucson believes in the future that their technology and AFN (self-driving freight network) will make long-distance trucking safer, more reliable, more efficient and environmentally friendly.

At present, Tucson has developed a fully integrated software and hardware solution in the future, based on which it claims to be the most advanced level 4 (L4) self-driving semi-truck technology in the world. The advantages of its half-truck-specific technology include a sensing range of 1000 meters, a 35-second line view, a high-definition map with an accuracy of less than 5 centimeters, and an integrated L4 autonomous half-truck design with adequate sensor kits and components. The company launched AFN in July 2020 and is looking to rapidly expand its business and automated transport channels to provide users with 24x7 automatic freight services that are available everywhere.

The company is supported by a strong group of international strategic and financial investors, especially from two of the world's leading OEM manufacturers: Nevada and Volkswagen. Tucson will have a large business in the United States in the future, and its strong ecosystem of vertically integrated hardware partners further accelerates returns under the light capital business model.

In addition, by taking full advantage of these partnerships, the company aims to focus research and development on its core self-driving solutions and seek to de-risk, accelerate the commercialization of ANF and serve the freight industry on a sufficient scale. So far, the company has raised more than $800 million and is seeking to consolidate its position as a leader in self-driving trucks.

Tucson is expected to take the lead in bringing Lmur4 self-driving freight technology to market on a large scale in the future.

Tucson in the future claims that it occupies a dominant position in the field of self-driving with its state-of-the-art truck L4 autonomous driving system. The company says it is the only company where trucks can drive themselves between highways and ground-level streets. Tucson has decided to mass-produce in 2024, and its ANF will also enter the market.

Business prospects: reshaping the $4 trillion global freight market

In the US alone, the trucking market has an estimated size of about $800 billion, accounting for nearly 80 per cent of all freight markets. Currently, most goods are transported only on 10% of America's interstate highways, with labor and fuel accounting for 43% and 30% of the high operating costs, respectively. As a result, Tucson said in the future that its autopilot technology solution will benefit the freight market. In addition to promoting AFN in the United States, Tucson is also committed to entering the Chinese and European markets with OEM partner TRATON in the future to further expand and improve AFN. The total addressable market between the two places is estimated at US $2.1 trillion.

Provide safer, environmentally friendly and efficient freight tools

Safety: large truck accidents have killed an average of 5000 people a year over the past decade, about 90 per cent of which are caused by distracted, tired or substandard drivers. With the promotion of self-driving technology in the truck market, this will greatly reduce the number of accidents caused by human error. Environment: according to a study conducted by the company and the University of California, San Diego, its technology aims to improve fuel efficiency by about 10%. The company seeks to solve fuel efficiency issues while saving costs and reducing its carbon footprint.

Fundamentally solve the mismatch between supply and demand in the field of freight transportation

With the increasing demand of e-commerce trends and the increasing shortage of drivers and safety problems, freight capacity is unable to keep up with the pace of demand growth. Nevertheless, given that the industry has a shortfall of more than 60000 drivers and a turnover rate of more than 100%, Tucson hopes to fundamentally solve this imbalance between supply and demand in the future.

Tucson's future business model

The company mentions two different service models:

One is the operator mode.

Under this model, large shippers and carriers will buy Nevada's dedicated Lmuri 4 self-driving semi-truck carrying Tucson's future technology.

Customers need to subscribe to Tucson's future routing service (TuSimple Path), which will be based on the actual mileage of the self-driving truck.

Second, the future direct operation mode of Tucson.

The company provides customers with the service of managing the fleet.

Users can get a discount of about 15% from the current price.

$800 million in private financing comes from the following companies:

OEM: TRATON, owned by NYSE:NAV and DE:VOWG

Railways: Union Pacific Corp Company (NYSE:UNP) and Canadian National Railway Co

Operators: UPS Express (NYSE:UPS), PA:SCHN (Schneider), Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ:WERN) and American Express

Strategic partners: Goodyear and NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Tucson has received 5700 orders for future self-driving trucks to be produced in partnership with Nevada.

Although 2024 is still a long way off, the future L4 self-driving truck in Tucson has aroused great interest, and more and more people have joined the waiting list. About 10 freight companies have signed contracts with Tucson in the future within four months, and commercial truck customers (who are also equity investors) are expected to take up about 75% of the bookings. These bookings can be cancelled and refunded.

Tucson's future financial data

According to Smur1, Tucson's future operating loss will be $177.9 million in 2020, more than double the $84.8 million loss the previous year.

Tucson's future revenue did increase to $1.8 million in 2020, a 1.5-fold increase from $710000 in the same period last year.

Scale needs huge capital support, and Tucson succeeds in achieving high-value output with the least capital in the future. The company is still in the stage of R & D growth and needs to develop its business rapidly in the next 2-3 years, but Tucson already has a clear path in the future, partnering with leading proprietary software and world-class hardware suppliers. and developed a large-scale listing strategy, the company has a promising future in the field of freight self-driving.