Pony expands robotaxi fleet in Beijing

Toyota-backed startup Pony.ai added 30 autonomous vehicles on Thursday into its robotaxi fleet in Beijing, which can be hailed via a smart phone application throughout the 150-square kilometer Yizhuang region in the capital city.

The service, which is free of charge and available in a much larger area than most of its rivals, is expected to speed up the company's pace to explore the vast mobility market in China.

Pony said the newly added vehicles, each equipped with 15 sensors, are co-built on a standard production line with Toyota, so they have better quality, durability and consistency than predecessors.

James Peng, Pony's co-founder and CEO, said it will explore cooperation with other carmakers as well.

Pony started to offer its robotaxi service in Beijing last year. It also has robotaxi fleets in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, and California in the United States. Pony will soon make inroads into Shanghai as well, said a company executive.

Pony.ai is conducting tests on public roads in five cities in China and the US, with the combined mileage totaling 5 million kilometers.

Zhao Yue, a senior investment executive at China Securities, said Google's Waymo still leads in terms of autonomous driving technology, but Chinese companies including Pony are rapidly catching up, and China as a market has much more potential than the United States.

"There are around 20 million taxies here in China, and that is a huge market," said Zhao.

Pony said it is partnering with a mobility company under China's FAW to promote its robotaxi service in Beijing, and it is working with T3, a car-hailing platform, to offer the service in the country's Yangtze River Delta region.

Co-built by China's top State-owned carmakers, T3 is one of the largest mobility companies in the country, and it expects to replace all its vehicles by 2027.

Besides the passenger vehicle segment, Pony has been making forays into the autonomous truck segment since 2018.

Its truck division was established in 2020, and it has obtained the permit to test its autonomous trucks in Guangdong province.

Statistics show that China's road freight totaled 33.8 billion metric tons in 2020, and there were over 30 million truck drivers on the roads every day.

Established in 2016, Pony.ai raised over $1.1 billion by the end of March from investors including Toyota, with its valuation hitting $5.3 billion.