Ministry of Ecology and Environment Delegation Visits BOTIX’s Auto Spring

On the morning of April 23, Li Tianwei, Director-General of the Department of Atmospheric Environment at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, led a delegation on a research visit focused on the development of green inland shipping and the prevention and control of air pollution at ports in Huzhou.

During the visit, the delegation inspected Auto Spring, BOTIX’s purpose-designed, next-generation green intelligent vessel, at Changxing Port Container Terminal.

Director-General Li and the delegation boarded the vessel and received a detailed briefing from the BOTIX team on Auto Spring’s progress in autonomous navigation, its performance advantages and its potential applications.

As a demonstration project supporting Huzhou’s green and intelligent transformation of inland shipping, Auto Spring is equipped with BOTIX’s autonomous navigation system. It is China’s first inland autonomous navigation system to complete an approval-in-principle review and prototype verification for supporting the Full-Cycle Autonomous Navigation (Nn) and Autonomous Operation (A1) requirements.

The BOTIX team also presented the vessel’s contribution to greener, lower-carbon shipping. On a comparable voyage, a conventional diesel-powered vessel incurs an energy cost of approximately RMB 3,000, while Auto Spring requires around RMB 1,500. The electric vessel also reduces carbon dioxide emissions by approximately nine tonnes per voyage.

As its end-to-end autonomous navigation capabilities mature, and subject to applicable operational and regulatory requirements, onboard staffing could potentially be reduced from three crew members to one, further improving operating economics.

At the conclusion of the visit, BOTIX reaffirmed its commitment to continuously improving its autonomous navigation technologies and expanding the application of new energy vessels across a broader range of operating scenarios.

The company will continue advancing green intelligent vessels from demonstration projects toward scalable deployment, providing repeatable and deployable BOTIX solutions for the high-quality development of shipping and supporting China’s broader transport development initiatives.