Pony.ai – a leading global autonomous driving company – recently held a joint venture signing ceremony recently with Toyota Motor (China) Investment Co., Ltd. (TMCI) and GAC Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. (GTMC). The three parties announced they would form a joint venture to advance the future mass production and large-scale deployment of fully driverless robotaxis. The joint venture company will be established this year with an estimated investment of more than RMB 1 billion (approx. USD 139.2 million).
GTMC will provide Pony.ai with Toyota-branded battery electric vehicles, which are equipped with Toyota’s vehicle redundant systems that are suitable for L4 autonomous driving development. The cars will be equipped with Pony.ai’s advanced autonomous driving technology and run on Pony.ai’s robotaxi network platform PonyPilot+. The parties’ joint efforts are going to deliver safe and convenient robotaxi services for riders.
This joint venture combines Pony.ai’s world-class autonomous driving technology and robotaxi operations experience, Toyota’s sophisticated vehicle technologies, and GTMC’s advanced production experience. And it will provide the capacity for scaled-up robotaxi services, encourage the full commercialization of advanced autonomous mobility, and drive the development of the entire industry into a new stage.
Plus, the joint venture will deepen the long-time collaboration between Pony.ai and Toyota. And in August 2019, Pony.ai and Toyota announced they would jointly advance the development of autonomous vehicles in China. In September 2019, the two companies joined hands to lead autonomous driving testing on public roads in China, using Toyota’s Lexus RX 450h model and Pony.ai’s autonomous driving systems. And in April 2023, the Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS (S-AM) vehicle equipped with Pony.ai’s sixth-generation autonomous driving software and hardware system started public road testing in Beijing and Guangzhou.
Along with its self-owned fleets, Pony.ai currently has a combined fleet of around 200 Toyota and Lexus brand robotaxis, located in all four of China’s Tier-1 cities (Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen) for road tests and public-facing robotaxi operations.
