Mars Auto Secures Grants for US Autonomous Trucking

Seoul, South Korea - Mars Auto announced Monday that it has secured government funding and support for artificial intelligence infrastructure to expand its commercial self-driving truck operations in the United States.

The company will receive KRW 2 billion over two years from the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) under a regulatory sandbox program.

Concurrently, Mars Auto was selected for a national AI project overseen by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT).

Through this initiative, the company will gain access to exaflops-class NVIDIA Blackwell GPU infrastructure to advance its end-to-end AI autonomous driving models.

Mars Auto is currently operating a 3,379-kilometer commercial freight route between the Port of Long Beach, California, and destinations in Alabama and Georgia.

The company describes this as the longest single autonomous logistics route globally.

The US operations are being conducted under a "Team Korea" consortium, which includes auto parts manufacturer Hyundai Mobis and logistics firms Lotte Global Logistics and LX Pantos.

Founded in 2017, Mars Auto uses a camera-based end-to-end AI architecture rather than LiDAR sensors and high-definition maps.

The company said this approach reduces component and maintenance costs by over 90%.

Its proprietary MarsPilot system costs approximately KRW 10 million, can be installed on standard trucks within a day, and currently handles autonomous driving for roughly 97% of active client routes.

Since launching paid freight transport in South Korea in 2023 under a regulatory exemption, Mars Auto has accumulated over 15 million kilometers of driving data across eight regular routes.

The company collects an average of 2,000 hours of real-world driving data daily through its operations with domestic retailers, global logistics firms, the postal service, and the Republic of Korea Army.