(Yicai Global) Jan. 20 -- Chinese green energy firm GCL Energy Technology is teaming up with autonomous driving commercial vehicle company Deepway Technology to provide battery-swap services for electric heavy-duty trucks along the Beijing-Shanghai Highway.

GCL Energy will construct 10 battery-swap stations along the 1,262 kilometer-long Beijing-Shanghai express way to be finished by the fourth quarter this year while Deepway, which is 48.98 percent owned by tech giant Baidu, will supply 100 electric trucks, Wuxi, eastern Jiangsu province-based GCL Energy said yesterday.

The battery-swap network on the Beijing-Shanghai Highway should be capable of serving 1,000 heavy-duty electric trucks by the end of next year, it added. To realize the goals, they plan to fundraise.

The two parties will also look at potential joint projects such as further developing battery-swap technology, making new-generation battery-swap large trucks, extending their battery-swap network and operating a logistics platform, it added.

Deepway, which is majority-owned by truck logistics company Lionbridge Logistics, makes Level Four unmanned commercial vehicles, which are fully self-driving and only require occasional human intervention, that run on Baidu’s Apollo autonomous driving platform.

GCL Energy, a subsidiary of new energy developer GCL, has made electric vehicle battery swapping one of its main businesses. In June last year it said it would spend CNY3.6 billion (USD556.9 million) to build 488 new energy vehicle battery-swap stations across China, 313 for passenger vehicles and 175 for heavy-duty trucks.

GCL Energy’s share price [SHE:002015] was trading down 2.75 percent at CNY18.38 (USD2.90) as of 12:30 p.m. China time today.

Editor: Kim Taylor