Autonomous driving company Pony and Toyota in Collaboration is planning to mass produce Robotaxis in China. Both partners are on a same track in producing a fleet of ‘funky driverless robotaxis’. According to the company, the development is under process and set to begin this year. The initiative will receive $139 million in capital from GAC Toyota Motor Co., Ala joint venture between Toyota China and GAC, a Chinese state owned automaker.
Previously, in 2020 Toyota pump about $400 million in Pony which turned out into this project. Toyota says, ‘it’ll give Pony an unspecified number of its EVs, while Pony will outfit them with autonomous-driving tech and the firm’s “robotaxi network platform.” ‘
Pony is an innovative automobile company, while $139 million is quite significant amount, pony.ai has raised million and billions of dollars since its establishment in 2016.Hiwever, it has faced multiple challenges being a self-driving developer. Mutually, Toyota has decided to provide Pony.ai with an undisclosed number of electric vehicles (EVs) layer, which will be equipped and advanced with Pony.ai autonomous driving technology and it’s ‘robotic network platform’.
In 2021, took its first start in driverless vehicle testing in California. The same year, the company scaled back its plans for autonomous trucks by building a teamwork for research and development and loosing several executives. When Pony.ai recalled its self-driving software in 2022 and sued two ex-employees for allegedly stealing trade secrets to establish a rival startup called Qingtian Truck, the company suffered many hurdles. Pony.ai claimed a valuation of $8.5 billion at the same time, despite these obstacles.
Back in August 2019, Toyota and Pony.ai, ad joint venture announced their plans to advance self-driving vehicles in China, by testing them on public roads. Currently the company has around 200 Toyota AMD Lexus brand Robotaxis across China’s tier 1cities.
Not only this, pony.ai is the first autonomous driving company that has a taxi license in China last April. The taxi service has accumulated nearly 15 million miles of autonomous driving. Toyota’s new joint venture is specifically designed to ‘advance the future mass production” and “large-scale deployment” of fully driverless electric robotaxis.
The initiative of introducing Robotaxis in China is to convert China’s transitions of auto market to electric. Toyota revealed its plans earlier this week to accelerate local development of software and tech in China with an aim to introduce ‘electrified vehicles that are competitive” in the market’
The new plans are to just advance the design and development of active cockpits with modern interior designs and built in AI features Chinese buyers are looking for. GAC, a joint venture of Toyota has recently announced that it was terminating the contracts of about 1,000 workers last week.
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