/ Assoc/Guangzhou, April 27, 2022 -- After becoming the first autonomous driving company in China to obtain a license to operate taxis, Ma Zhixing has reached a key cooperation progress in promoting the commercialization of autonomous driving travel services. On April 26, Ma Zhixing announced to further deepen the cooperation with Ruqi Chuxing, a mobile transportation platform owned by Guangzhou Automobile Group, further integrate the high-quality resources of both sides in the field of technology research and development and transportation services, build a fleet of 100 large-scale autonomous driving vehicles, and start the demonstration operation of Robotaxi in Guangzhou within this year.
Pony Zhixing will provide Ruqi Chuxing with autonomous driving new energy vehicles based on self-developed "virtual driver" technology, equipped with advanced L4 automatic driving software and hardware solutions. As an intelligent networked transportation platform of world-class automobile industry cluster in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Ruqi Chuxing will give full play to its advantages of efficient operation as a transportation platform and massive data to accelerate the commercialization of Robotaxi. Subsequently, the two parties will jointly carry out systematic fleet management, build a public service Robotaxi fleet, and promote the commercial landing application of cutting-edge autonomous driving technology on the travel platform. In order to deepen cooperation and expand the cooperation ecosystem of automatic driving industry chain, Ma Zhixing participated in the A round financing of Ruqi Chuxing.
"Deep cooperation with Ruqi Travel is a key strategic choice for Ma Zhixing to build a future travel ecology. In the past five years of research and development, Ma Zhixing has accumulated the industry-leading technology capability of 'virtual driver', which will effectively empower people to travel. To this end, we will not only further strengthen our own autonomous mobility platform PonyPilot+, but also actively work with the industry's leading mobility platform to build a future mobility ecosystem." Peng Jun, co-founder and CEO of Pony Zhixing, said.
"For Robotaxi to truly be a service, it has to operate on a mobility platform. Ruqi Chuxing will launch the first truly open Robotaxi operation platform in the domestic travel industry under the strategic layout of "two-axle drive", provide industrial partners represented by Ma Zhixing with Robotaxi commercial operation solutions and Robotaxi vehicle operation infrastructure to help the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain jointly accelerate Robotaxi business Finally, autonomous driving, a cutting-edge technology, will truly become a practical, operational and sustainable travel business scene." Such as Qi travel CEO Jiang Hua said.
In order to speed up the commercialization process of autonomous driving technology, Ma Zhixing takes both steps. On the one hand, it actively builds its own autonomous driving travel technology platform to accumulate service experience from zero to one. At the same time, it also actively promotes the cooperation with the third party leading travel platforms to realize the large-scale application of Robotaxi in more cities. The results of cooperation with Ruqi will further facilitate citizens to use autonomous driving travel services in different ways, so that the technology can truly benefit the public.
From May, Pony Chi Heng's existing self-driving travel service in Nansha, Guangzhou will be connected to Ruqi's platform. Besides the PonyPilot+ App, users will also be able to access Pony Chi Heng's self-driving vehicles through Ruqi's travel App.
Ma Zhixing announced on April 24 that it won the bid for the 2022 taxi capacity index of Nansha District, Guangzhou, and obtained the first taxi business license issued to an autonomous driving company in China. After winning the bid, Ma Zhixing won approval to deploy 100 autonomous vehicles to provide taxi services in Nansha, Guangzhou.
About Ma Chi Heng
Pony.ai, founded in late 2016, is committed to providing safe, advanced and reliable full-stack autonomous driving technology to revolutionize the mode of transportation in the future. We set up R&D centers in Silicon Valley, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, starting from China and the United States. With the latest breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence technology, Ma Zhixing has established cooperation with Toyota, FAW, Guangzhou Automobile and other international and domestic first-class car manufacturers, and became the first company in the world to launch Robotaxi in both China and the United States. As of March 2022, the company is valued at $8.5 billion, making it one of the most valuable autonomous driving companies in the world.
