The co-founder and former CEO of autonomous-truck company TuSimple is back with a new company, Bot Auto, based in Houston, Texas.

The Bot Auto team is composed of experienced autonomous vehicle executives and engineering talent. 

Xiaodi Hou, founder and CEO of Bot Auto, described them as “true believers in autonomous trucking.”

According to the company’s news release, this opportunity allows them to start an AV trucking company with a clean slate with the ability to leverage today’s cutting-edge AI technology.

The company has raised $20 million in funding from investors.

“Our strong commitment, combined with recent AI advancements and a sharpened focus on operational efficiency, has created a clear path to commercialization,” Hou said in a news release.

“Our prospects for success have never been more promising. We march forward, committed to bringing this transformative technology to humanity for a brighter future.”

Bot Auto operates a transportation-as-a-service business model with its fleet of autonomous trucks.

Avoiding TuSimple’s Mistakes

The funding announcement said the funds will be focused on developing the technology while avoiding:

• Scaling the operational footprint prior to product readiness.
• Unnecessary hiring ahead of operational maturity.
• Over expansion and partnership debt.

This seems to be targeted toward avoiding mistakes made by TuSimple and other autonomous trucking operations that didn’t make it.

Prior to Bot Auto, Hou co-founded TuSimple in 2015 and in 2019 said it would offer fully self-driving trucks within five years. 

However, in the fall of 2022, Hou, at the time TuSimple’s CEO, president and chief technology officer, was fired as a result of an internal investigation.

But the leadership shake-up wasn’t enough to put the company’s U.S. operations back on track. A little over a year later, TuSimple shuttered its U.S. operations.

Hou was still on the TuSimple board until the following March of 2023, when he resigned.

He refuted allegations from TuSimple that he was trying to steal TuSimple staff for his new company. In a LinkedIn post, Hou said that he resigned because of “continuing concerns about current leadership at the company, and my fundamental disagreement with TuSimple’s new business strategy and future direction.”

Fast forward to September 2024 and the announcement that Bot Auto was coming out of stealth mode.

On Sept. 26, Hou posted on his LinkedIn, “At Bot Auto, we’re spearheading the crucial leap from promising technology to market-ready products. Our mission? To transform today’s autonomous driving potential into tomorrow’s commercial reality, paving the way for safer roads and more efficient logistics solutions.”