A Pony.ai robotaxi drives on a population highway in a suburb in southern Beijing on July 11, 2024.
China Information Provider | China Information Provider | Getty Pictures
BEIJING — Within the unedited step towards construction a revenue-generating robotaxi industry, Chinese language start-up Pony.ai mentioned it has received China’s first allow to price fares for absolutely driverless taxis in core portions of a industry district of Shenzhen.
Town is a coastal tech hub in southern China, now and again dubbed the rustic’s Silicon Valley.
The license permits Pony.ai to price fares for rides — with none human personnel within — in key portions of the district of Nanshan, house to tech giants Tencent and DJI. The allow does no longer safeguard journeys throughout all of the length, proscribing it to farmlands such because the monetary sub-district.
Pony.ai has already operated robotaxis in portions of a neighboring Shenzhen district and will run taxis with human personnel within on routes that tie to the Shenzhen global airport and Shenzhen Bay Checkpoint at the border with Hong Kong.
Past Pony.ai didn’t expose what number of robotaxis it would perform within the Shenzhen patch, the corporate mentioned the driverless vehicles may run day by day from 7:30 a.m. to ten p.m. native moment.
Citizens can hold the robotaxi rides thru Pony.ai’s app or a mini-program throughout the WeChat messaging app, in step with a press reduce.
Pony.ai additionally operates robotaxis in portions of the key Chinese language towns of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, for a complete of greater than 250 vehicles around the nation lately November.
In overdue 2021, native government in Beijing began permitting Baidu’s Apollo Travel and Pony.ai to price fares for robotaxis in a southern suburb of town.
In mid-March, Pony.ai additionally mentioned it used to be the primary corporate to foundation a paid robotaxi path from the suburb to Beijing South Railway Station. Customers will have to accumulation the journey a generation in move, and a human personnel workman will have to take a seat within the motive force’s seat, in step with flow laws.
Pony.ai this hour reported “a significant increase” in passenger fares within the fourth quarter from a yr in the past, with out disclosing actual figures. However the corporate mentioned its total profit from robotaxi services and products fell by means of just about 61.9% year-on-year to $2.6 million within the fourth quarter because of lowered provider charges for self reliant car engineering answers. It additionally famous its profit from robotruck services and products rose by means of 72.7% year-on-year to $12.9 million because of the growth of its robotruck fleet.
