Pony.Ai Becomes First Autonomous Car Maker With Taxi License In China

Pony.Ai has become the first autonomous taxi service in China to get an approval to operate a robotaxi service. The Toyota backed robotaxi service will operate 100 self driving vehicles in the Naasha district of Guangzhou and will later expand the service to other parts of the city. Riders will be able hail and pay for the robotaxis from the app between 8:30 am and 10:30 pm and its fares will be in tune with standard taxi pricing in the city. The autonomous cars will also have a driver present in the car for safety purposes but there are plans to remove the driver in the short to intermediate term.

Baidu, Pony.ai Approved For Robotaxi Services In Beijing

In November Pony.Ai had gained approval to operate 67 vehicles in Beijing. It is also working to establish a US presence, but its prospects have had a major setback in the recent past after a car crashed in California. This resulted in its permit getting suspended. In the US, it had been testing its cars since 2017 and had received a permit to operate vehicles without drivers till this incident happened.

As of April 2022, Pony.Ai has competed 700,000 trips and 80 percent of the riders are recurring customers. The autonomous car space is quite crowded. There are players like Waymo, Cruise, AutoX and even Baidu has its Apollo project. Many tech companies are also looking at the space with the likes of Apple, Tesla and Amazon also developing their self driving technology.