China’s Pony.ai sees shares surge after Uber deal, as truly autonomous cars move closer to reality

Shares of China’s Pony.ai soared 48% on Tuesday after the Guangzhou-based robotaxi developer announced a partnership with Uber to offer autonomous vehicle rides, becoming the latest company that Uber has attached itself to in its quest to bring fleets of robotic taxis into the mainstream.

Why it matters: Such a rise, as well as Uber’s third collaboration with a Chinese company in a week, indicate a significant improvement in sentiment towards autonomous vehicle companies after investor confidence in self-driving technology had been waning amid questions over timeframes and costs.

• Large-scale deployment of highly autonomous vehicles is achievable over the next five to 10 years, Liu Guanghao, partner at Shanghai-based venture capital firm Befor Capital, told TechNode, projecting the penetration rate would reach at least 10% globally in the next decade.
• Liu sees network-driven ride-hailing giants Uber and Didi as being the biggest beneficiaries of this type of economy of scale, as fully autonomous technology becomes closer to reality, driven by so-called end-to-end artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning.

Details: Initially, Pony.ai’s highly autonomous ride-hailing vehicles will come with a human driver present and be available via the Uber app in a Middle Eastern country later this year before the collaboration expands to new markets, the companies said on Tuesday, without revealing further details.

• Pony.ai has partnered with Toyota, China’s GAC, and BAIC for the production of its robotaxis, aiming to expand its autonomous ride-hailing fleet from its current level of almost 300 cars to 1,000 by the end of this year. The company’s seventh-gen robotaxis are said to cost 20% to 30% lower than those of US rival Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo, TechNode has reported.
• Pony.ai‘s autonomous driving tech continues to lead the market when its vehicles deal with driving tasks such as making a U-turn or switching lanes on highways, an analyst told TechNode on the sideline of this year’s Shanghai Auto Show. Search engine Baidu and ride-hailing platform Didi are among the rival companies also making robotaxis, as well as WeRide and Momenta.

Context: The news comes just three days after Uber said it will work with Momenta, another Toyota-backed Chinese startup, to roll out robotaxis for passenger transport in Europe in 2026. Meanwhile, the US ride-hailing giant said on Monday that it is extending its partnership with WeRide, with plans to offer its robotaxi service in 15 additional cities across the Middle East and Europe over the next five years; the pair already operate services in Abu Dhabi.

• Pony.ai’s valuation has declined from more than $8 billion pre-IPO in 2022 to $5.1 billion at Tuesday’s Nasdaq close, with that of its peers such as WeRide also seeing decreases over this period. It notched a valuation of $5.25 billion in its long-awaited US initial public offering (IPO) in November.

READ MORE: Shanghai Auto Show: Automakers navigate shifting smart driving market dynamics