DHL, together with Chinese autonomous-vehicle startup Zelostech, has put fully electric, driverless vehicles into operation to move goods between hubs, sorting centers and warehouses.
At its Advanced Regional Center (ARC) in Singapore, this marks the first DHL site globally where such a vehicle has moved from innovation trial to daily operational use. The focus isn’t on driverless cars on public roads, but on the “invisible middle” of logistics: the repetitive, predictable trips between on-site facilities. Each vehicle carries up to three pallets (max. 1.5 tons per trip), runs 24/7, and averages 40 trips a day over a 700-meter route.
Why now
DHL cites three drivers: (1) driver shortages (US: ~160,000 by 2030; Europe: ~745,000 unfilled roles by 2028, per McKinsey), (2) safety, through sensor-based navigation in low-speed settings like warehouses and yards, and (3) cost: the vehicles reportedly run at roughly half the cost of traditional diesel trucks, plus CO₂ reductions from being fully electric.
Zelostech, founded in China in 2021, builds AVs specifically for short- and medium-distance logistics routes and now operates around 4,000 vehicles across more than 300 cities in China and Singapore. The company first caught DHL’s attention through the “DHL Fast Forward Challenge,” after which it moved quickly from proof of concept to live deployment.
The global autonomous truck market is projected by Fortune Business Insights to grow from $46.58 billion (2026) to $107.7 billion (2034); a CAGR above 11%, with North America and Asia-Pacific leading.
Organizationally, the shift moves staff from driving vehicles to managing systems and data. DHL frames autonomy as reshaping jobs rather than replacing them. Next step in Singapore: expanding the Zelostech partnership and testing how autonomous transport scales within more complex logistics ecosystems.
Relevance for city logistics
The case shows how AV deployment tends to prove itself first in controlled, site-bound settings (hub-to-hub) before scaling to busier, less predictable urban environments. This is a useful counterpoint to the “last mile” framing that usually dominates public attention.