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Pony.ai scores self-driving car taxis in Guangzhou – TechCrunch


Self-driving car startup Pony.ai has been granted a license in Guangzhou to operate 100 taxis like traditional taxis. The license allows Pony to charge for rides on its autonomous vehicles, marking another step on the path to commercialization of autonomous vehicles in China.

WeRide, one of Pony’s competitors in China, ran service cooperation with Guangzhou’s government-backed Baiyun taxi group since 2019, which gave the company the advantage of being at the forefront of commercialization. However, this To be suppose China for the first time issued taxi licenses exclusively for fleets of autonomous vehicles, without having to partner with a traditional taxi operator. The license also requires Pony’s fleets of vehicles to follow the same rules that govern traditional human-operated taxis.

“The introduction of self-driving vehicles into unified and standardized management shows that both government and public policy are increasingly accepting robots as a form of air transportation,” said Mr. Tiancheng Lou. day, recognizing the riding experience and technical stability of Pony.ai’s robot”. , co-founder and chief technology officer of Pony.ai in a statement.

Pony, last month announced an undisclosed increase that brought the company’s valuation to $8.5 billionwill start charging fares in Guangzhou’s Nansha district in May, an 800 square kilometer port area in the middle country The Greater Bay Area is driven by technology. Passengers will be able to ride and pay via the PonyPilot+ App between 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m., with fares based on “standard taxi prices in Guangzhou,” according to Pony.

The company did not respond to a request for information on what vehicles will be included in its fleet, but photos Pony shared with TechCrunch show a Lexus equipped with Pony’s sensors.

Each ride will initially have a human-safe driver in the front seat, although Pony has stated its intention to remove the driver “in the short-to-intermediate period”. This is a bold goal, as no city government in China has officially allowed the unobstructed robot to serve drivers to surrounding passengers. Even if Pony could get rid of the driver, it’s hard to imagine such a service would be allowed to operate in Guangzhou’s busy downtown in no time.

Pony said it intends to gradually expand the size and scope of its services to other areas of the city, but did not specify when.

“To be eligible for a license, Pony.ai had to pass other rigorous safety and multimedia qualification tests set by national testing organizations, such as being at least 24 months old. [autonomous driving (AD)] testing in China and/or other countries, at least 1 million km of testing, at least 200,000 km of AD testing in the designated test area of ​​Guangzhou and not related to any traffic accidents information,” the company said in a statement.

In California, where Pony is testing its drone capabilities, the company recently had to issued a recall of its autonomous driving software after a crash in October, which resulted in the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspending the company’s driverless driver’s license.

Guangzhou is not the first city Pony has charged for the use of robots. The company, along with Baidu’s self-driving car service, got license in Beijing last November to charge passengers in a small pilot area in the suburbs.

Pony is also testing autonomous vehicles in Shanghai and Shenzhen, as well as Fremont and Irvine in California. The company said it had completed more than 700,000 trips as of mid-April, though it’s likely most of those trips occurred in China.

If commercialization in Guangzhou and Beijing is successful, Pony intends to expand its commercialized robotaxi footprint to two other major Chinese cities next year, with further expansion planned by 2024 and 2025, the company said. Pony did not respond to requests for more clarification, or whether it has applied for a license to deploy in California.

The company had intended to list shares in New York through the SPAC merger last year, but those plans have been delayed. reported was delayed after the company failed to obtain assurances from the Chinese government that it would not be the target of a crackdown against Chinese tech companies.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated a software bug that caused three problems. There was an accident. The fault was found in three of Pony.ai’s cars.



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