Bot Auto

Xiaodi Hou is a computer-vision researcher turned serial autonomous-trucking entrepreneur. He earned a bachelor's in computer science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a PhD in Computation and Neural Systems from Caltech, and holds more than 30 patents in autonomous-vehicle technology. In 2015 he co-founded TuSimple with Mo Chen and Jianan Hao, serving as CTO of the San Diego company that became the first autonomous trucking startup to go public on Nasdaq. He took over as TuSimple's CEO and board chairman in March 2022 but was ousted later that year amid board turmoil; TuSimple subsequently wound down its U.S. operations and delisted, and Hou publicly pushed for the company's liquidation. In 2023 he founded Bot Auto in Houston, returning to the same mission with a leaner playbook: the company debuted publicly in late 2024 with $20 million in pre-Series A funding, a roughly 40-person team drawn heavily from laid-off TuSimple engineers, and a Transportation-as-a-Service model in which Bot Auto operates its own Level 4 autonomous truck fleet for freight customers. Hou argues the recent wave of AI advances makes autonomy dramatically cheaper to build than in TuSimple's era. In September 2025 Bot Auto completed its first fully humanless hub-to-hub validation run on public roads in Houston — no one in the cab and no remote assistance — ahead of a four-month driver-out commercial pilot hauling freight between Houston and San Antonio.