Pony.ai says the Chinese language capital, Beijing, has large plans for robotaxis

BEIJING – The Chinese language capital is taking fast steps to permit its robotaxi enterprise to develop.

As of Tuesday, the Yizhuang district on the outskirts of Beijing formally allowed native robo-taxi operators — primarily Baidu and startup Pony.ai — to cost fares for totally self-driving taxis, with no human workers inside.

This fully eliminates the motive force value. Beforehand, public-facing business robotaxis had been required to have an worker sit inside with the passenger. The Yizhuang District is positioned about half an hour’s drive from downtown Beijing and is residence to firms reminiscent of JD.com.

Extra approvals for robotaxi operations within the metropolis are coming, mentioned Ning Zhang, vice chairman of Pony.ai and head of its R&D heart in Beijing.

“We’ve got very excessive confidence… Possibly in simply three years, our full driverless vehicles shall be operating in the complete metropolis of Beijing,” he mentioned in an interview with CNBC on Monday.

Citing conversations with Beijing’s mayor, Zhang mentioned that by the tip of the 12 months, the town goals to develop robotaxi testing areas to Daxing Worldwide Airport and round one prepare station.

In July, Beijing Mayor Yin Yong met individually with Pony.ai, Alibaba and Xiaomi to encourage their work on related vehicles, synthetic intelligence and different superior applied sciences. That is in accordance with a state media report that Pony.ai reposted on its official WeChat account.

The town additionally beforehand introduced public plans to extend the robo-taxi testing space.

Lower than two years in the past, in November 2021, the town of Beijing allowed robotaxi operators to cost public-facing fares for rides, a primary step towards eliminating driver value. Individuals can guide closely sponsored taxi rides from Baidu and Pony.ai within the Yizhuang space by way of the businesses’ apps.

Of the greater than 200 robotaxis Pony.ai is engaged on within the area, solely a few dozen are at present driverless, Zhang mentioned. He famous that the town of Beijing is contemplating seven components in a phased course of to permit public robotaxis to function, together with which seat the secure driver sits in and whether or not the car is getting used for testing or business operation.

After preliminary testing, Zhang expects the totally self-driving taxis to be working round Daxing Airport subsequent 12 months.

The town of Beijing didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark. Baidu has not introduced what number of self-driving robotaxis it could possibly function till the announcement.

In the US, San Francisco has been one of many main cities in testing robotaxis. Final August, California authorities mentioned that Alphabet’s Waymo and Basic Motors Cruise may present paid robotaxi providers in San Francisco and transport passengers all through the town, 24 hours a day.

Shortly after, the California Division of Motor Automobiles mentioned Cruise must cut back its robotaxi fleet by 50% in San Francisco. The corporate’s self-driving automobiles have lately been concerned in a number of accidents.

Pony.ai’s Zhang claimed that the startup has by no means had any driverless robotaxi accidents in China, and that it has one of the best security report on the planet.

When requested in regards to the security report of different robotaxi operators in China, Zhang mentioned he couldn’t share particulars however mentioned rivals had had accidents.

When a Baidu consultant was requested in regards to the bots’ security report in July, he referred CNBC to a report that did not present a lot readability on the difficulty.

Creating a security report that helps extra authorities permits for robotaxi operations depends closely on information.

Pony.ai’s Zhang mentioned the corporate cleans its information by eradicating delicate data reminiscent of car license plate numbers and information associated to an individual’s id — together with erasing faces from movies.

He mentioned that solely a restricted group of individuals have entry to delicate information and that Chinese language information stays in China, whereas any American information stays in the US.

Pony.ai claims to be value $8.5 billion as of March 2022. The corporate goals to interrupt even by 2025, Zhang mentioned.

Chinese language tech large Baidu operates robotaxis beneath the Apollo Go model in different cities in China and claims to have operated greater than 3.3 million rides.

In June, the tech large mentioned it had obtained approval to function unmanned robotaxis in a suburb of Shenzhen. This adopted an analogous approval in August 2022 to take away human workers on some robotaxis in components of Wuhan and Chongqing.

Pony.ai additionally operates robotaxis in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai, Zhang mentioned.

— CNBC’s Kev Leswing and Laura Kolodny contributed to this story.