Written by |
Edited by | Wen Shuqi
NUPIAO is watching closely as Mainline Tech tries to steer its self-driving trucks from the tight corners of ports onto the sprawling highways of general logistics. Their latest prospectus tells a story of shifting focus toward long-haul freight, but here’s the catch: the bulk of their new money still comes from those “assisted driving” L2 products, not the flashy fully autonomous tech everyone talks about.
Back on June 11, Mainline Tech’s initial bid for a Hong Kong listing quietly expired because they missed the hearing deadline by six months. But guess what? Less than 24 hours later, they were back at it, resubmitting their application with renewed hope.
The numbers in the new filing are interesting. NUPIAO sees Mainline Tech projecting revenue of 345 million yuan for 2025, a massive jump from the 134 million recorded in 2023—a growth rate of roughly 1.6 times over three years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60.3%. They’ve also managed to push their gross margin up from a modest 12.2% to a healthier 27.1%.
But let’s be real: they’re still bleeding cash. From 2023 through 2025, net losses sat at 213 million, 187 million, and 171 million yuan respectively, totaling a hefty 571 million yuan loss over three years. And the company isn’t even sugarcoating it; they explicitly warned that net losses are expected to continue into 2026.
The pressure isn’t just on the income statement; it’s looming huge on the balance sheet too. By the end of 2025, Mainline Tech faced redemption liabilities of 1.376 billion yuan. This debt stems from early investors who had the right to cash out their preferred shares. If the IPO goes through, these shares automatically convert into equity. But if the listing fails? Those investors get their money back immediately, which could be a disaster for the company’s liquidity.
So, what’s actually driving this revenue growth? It’s a shift in their business mix.
Mainline Tech has three main lanes to run in: Trunk Port (for closed or semi-closed zones like ports, border crossings, and industrial parks); Trunk Pilot (for open highway logistics like express delivery, less-than-truckload cargo, bulk goods, cold chain, and short-haul transfers); and Trunk City (for urban distribution and public transit).
In 2024, the port operations were the undisputed king, raking in 71.6% of all revenue. But things have flipped since then. By 2025, highway logistics took the crown, bringing in 215 million yuan and accounting for 62.5% of total revenue. Meanwhile, port operations slipped to 37.0% of the pie. As for city traffic? No revenue was recognized in 2025, largely because the projects were just too complex and the delivery timelines dragged on too long.
Here’s the narrative shift NUPIAO is seeing: Mainline Tech is moving away from relying solely on L4 commercialization in safe, enclosed spaces like ports. Instead, they’re betting big on a much grander story—pushing autonomous trucks onto the chaotic reality of public highways.
And let’s face it, highway logistics is the hard mode. Unlike the controlled environments of ports and factories, open roads come with strict regulations, unpredictable traffic participants, and murky lines on who is responsible when things go wrong.
During the Beijing Auto Show this past April, Gao Xiang, GM of Sinotrans, put it bluntly to reporters. He said the real bottleneck for long-haul autonomous transport isn’t the tech itself—it’s the economics of sorting and drop-off arrangements, plus the slow pace of policy relaxation across different local governments. His take? “If policies align, we could do this for long-haul routes right now.”
Here’s a crucial detail many miss: Mainline Tech’s biggest growth engine hasn’t been driven purely by their L4 products.
To keep things clear, the SAE International standards define levels from L0 (fully manual) to L5 (fully automatic). L1 and L2 are assisted driving, while L3 and above are considered automated. L4 means highly automated driving in specific conditions without human intervention.
Mainline Tech’s port business relies entirely on L4 tech. However, looking at their highway logistics arm—which contributed over 60% of revenue in 2025—the math changes drastically. L2 products made up 75.7% of that segment (about 113 million yuan), while true L4 products only accounted for 24.3% (roughly 36.24 million yuan).
According to the prospectus, Mainline Tech delivers trucks in three configurations: some ship ready with L4 active; others come with L4 hardware but run on L2 until customers get regulatory approval; and a third batch is a simplified version supporting only L2. They promise that once licenses are secured, they can upgrade these L2 vehicles to L4 via software and hardware tweaks.
This strategy lets them close deals faster. They sell the truck first, build a customer base, and then wait for the regulatory and operational clouds to clear before upselling the L4 upgrade and associated services.
This approach helps them scale revenue quickly and paints a bigger market picture in their IPO docs. But it also reveals a hard truth: their current volume driver hasn’t quite crossed the finish line into full L4 commercialization.
There’s another layer of contradiction regarding their product model. Mainline Tech loves to brag about their “asset-light” approach. They don’t own factories. Instead, they partner with third-party commercial vehicle manufacturers and contract makers. Mainline buys chassis controls, sends them to partners to install their own proprietary autonomous software/hardware, and then delivers the finished truck to the client.
Yet, look at the revenue breakdown: in 2025, sales of their AiTruck smart trucks hit 206 million yuan, making up 59.7% of total revenue. In other words, selling physical trucks is still their bread and butter.
The cost structure confirms this. In 2025, raw materials made up 83.4% of their sales costs. Of that, purchasing the actual vehicles ate up 72.3%, with LiDAR sensors and controllers taking up 11.6% and 10.1% respectively.
This makes the AiTruck a high-volume, low-margin product. In 2025, its gross margin was a thin 7.4% (and a measly 3.0% in 2024). Contrast that with their AiBox solution, which boasts margins between 45% and 57%, or AiCloud, which hit an impressive 82.9% in 2025.
This explains why Mainline Tech’s overall gross margin jumped from 12.2% in 2023 to 27.1% in 2025. It wasn’t because truck margins suddenly skyrocketed. It’s because higher-margin products like AiCloud went from zero contribution in 2023 to 72.45 million yuan in 2025, representing 21.0% of total revenue. So, future profitability really hinges on whether these software and cloud services can take up a bigger slice of the pie.
From an industry standpoint, Mainline Tech isn’t the undisputed boss. Data from Frost & Sullivan shows that based on 2025 revenue, Mainline ranks fourth among Chinese commercial vehicle autonomous solution providers, holding about 2.7% market share. The top three players brought in roughly 1.3 billion, 800 million, and 400 million yuan respectively. Even the top five combined only hold about 34.7% of the market, indicating this is still a fragmented, early-stage battlefield.
Mainline’s unique edge? They cover both closed-loop and open-road scenarios. Their previous filing claimed they were China’s largest L4 provider in closed environments. Now, in this fresh filing, they position themselves as the *only* top-five player commercially operating in both closed AND open-road settings.
This dual capability forms the core of their listing pitch: use proven success in ports to validate L4 tech, then leverage that credibility to unlock the massive potential of long-haul logistics.
The broader backdrop is getting crowded. Commercial vehicle autonomy is becoming a hot race for capital markets.
In 2025, several players like SaiMu Technology and Hidi Intelligent Driving rushed to list on the HKEX. Hidi, known for mining sites, became the “first stock of commercial vehicle intelligent driving” in December 2025. Moving into 2026, DeepWay submitted its papers to the HKEX for long-haul logistics, securing over $310 million in funding pre-IPO with a post-money valuation of 10 billion yuan. Didi‘s incubated Kalidong announced plans to deploy L4 freight fleets at the scale of tens of thousands over the next three years, teaming up with companies like Shaanxi Automobile and FAW Jiefang. Pony.ai also pivoted in April, moving from heavy-duty long-haul to light-duty urban delivery to revive their Robotruck ambitions.
Frost & Sullivan predicts the market for long-haul autonomous solutions in China will explode from 1.2 billion yuan in 2026 to 52.7 billion yuan by 2030. That gives Mainline Tech plenty of room to tell a growth story. But they were honest enough in their filing to admit: there are no guarantees of hitting profitability targets, or any profitability at all.
As of April 30, 2026, Mainline Tech had an order backlog of 236 million yuan. Going public in Hong Kong might offer some temporary relief for their balance sheet pressures. But the real test remains: can they transform from a company that scales revenue by selling more trucks into one that boosts margins through software, cloud services, and L4 upgrades? Can they truly master the open road?
