By Greg Gao

Sany Group, a Chinese multinational heavy equipment manufacturer, established a lithium battery company on August 2, with a registered capital of RMB100 million ($14.8 million), according to business data search platform Tianyancha.

The company’s business includes manufacturing and sales of batter, spare parts, battery leasing, energy storage technology services, charging control equipment leasing, charging pile sales, centralized fast charging stations, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure operation, Tianyancha showed.

The construction machinery giant’s latest move comes as the company further pushes its transition of electrification in the construction equipment and heavy truck industry.  

Sany Group has actively forayed into emerging fields such as electric trucks and autonomous driving in the past few years. It released multiple electric heavy trucks, dump trucks, and truck mixers. 

In February, the company teamed with China’s largest EV battery maker, CATL, to put battery swap-enabled heavy trucks and dump trucks into service in Ningde of southeastern China’s Fujian Province, where CATL is headquartered. Tianyancha showed that Sany established a battery swapping company on May 5. 

On July 28, Sany Heavy Truck, a Sany Group subsidiary formed a strategic joint venture with Pony.ai, an autonomous vehicle technology company, to create an autonomous truck brand.

The two parties plan to combine Pony.ai’s autonomous vehicle technology with Sany’s technical prowess in building heavy-duty trucks to launch self-driving trucks with Level 4 autonomy, which means the vehicles can drive themselves in certain conditions without human interference, enabling future trunk logistics transportation.