Pony.ai is a Chinese autonomous driving startup that was founded in Silicon Valley by a pair of former Baidu Inc. executives in 2016. The Guangzhou-based company offers autonomous mobility technologies and services across China and the United States. It plans to revolutionize the future of transportation on a global scale by creating the most reliable technique for safe autonomous vehicles.
The company writes on its website:
Since our founding in Fremont, California in late 2016, we have pioneered autonomous mobility deployment to benefit people in both the US and China. We are the first to launch and offer a public-facing Robotaxi service in California and in China.
The startup has been operating a robotaxi service in California since June – being one of the first two companies of Chinese origin to obtain a permit to do so. So far, the autonomous driving pilots in California and China have racked up over 1.5 million kilometers.
In 2019, Pony.ai also joined forces with Japanese car manufacturer Toyota to collaborate on research and deployment for next-generation mobility services. They are one of many technology and car manufacturing companies to push to materialize a driverless future. The business partnership initiated joint autonomous driving pilots in China. The alliance arose because Toyota is striving to “become a mobility company firmly rooted in China.”
This year, as an extension of this partnership, Pony.ai received an investment of US$462 million from Toyota Motor Corporation and other investors. Now with this recent funding round, the company’s valuation is more than US$3 billion. The autonomous driving industry is becoming one of the critical sectors in AI and has drawn billions of dollars of investments in recent years.
The money will serve to expand their collaboration in mobility services by enabling them to advance their joint efforts in autonomous driving technology development and mobility service deployment. One of the many things they will do is work on integrating Pony.ai’s independent driving system more deeply with Toyota’s vehicle platforms and technologies. Together the companies will explore all the possibilities to provide driverless mobility services that are “safe for all.”
