Pony.ai is an
autonomous vehicle technology company co-located in
Silicon Valley,
Beijing, and
Guangzhou.
History
The company was founded in December 2016 by James Peng and
Tiancheng Lou
Tiancheng Lou (; born 1986) is a Chinese businessman who is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Pony.ai, an autonomous vehicle technology company. He is also a competitive programmer whose achievements include winning the Google ...
who were formerly developers for
Baidu in Silicon Valley.
In April 2019, Pony.ai launched a pilot system covering in
Guangzhou for employees and invited affiliates, serving pre-defined pick-up points.
In November 2019, the company started a three-month trial in
Irvine, California, with 10 cars and defined stops for pick-up and drop-off.
In May 2021, California regulator,
California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), gave Pony.ai permission to test six autonomous vehicles without human safety drivers on specified streets in
Fremont,
Milpitas and Irvine. The permit restricts operation to roads with speed limits not exceeding in clear weather and light precipitation. Testing was planned to start in Fremont and Milpitas on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. In June 2021, testing began in Fremont and Milpitas.
On October 28, a Pony.ai vehicle operating in autonomous mode hit a road center divider and a traffic sign in Fremont after turning right. In December 2021, California DMV suspended a driverless testing permit for Pony.ai following this accident. It is the first time for DMV to issue such a suspension. Subsequently, the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched a probe.
More than four months after the accident, the NHTSA announced the "first recall of an automated driving system" as the company complied with the government agency’s request.
In May 2022, California DMV revoked Pony.ai's permit for failing to monitor the driving records of the safety drivers on its testing permit.
In April 2022, Pony.ai became the first autonomous driving company to get a taxi license in China.
Financing
In January 2018 Pony.ai completed a $112 million
Series A round co-led by
Morningside Venture Capital and
Legend Capital with seed round lead-investor
Sequoia China and investor
IDG Capital also participating in the round, alongside Hongtai Capital, Legend Star, Puhua Capital, Polaris Capital,
DCM Ventures,
Comcast Ventures and Silicon Valley Future Capital.
In February 2020,
Toyota invested $400 million in the company as part of a funding round of $462 million. Toyota previously announced working with Pony.ai on testing self-driving cars on public roads in Beijing and Shanghai.
The company intended to go public on the
New York Stock Exchange via a
SPAC route but in 2021, suspended its plans due to the China regulators.
As of 2020, the company had a valuation of $5.3 billion.
See also
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List of unicorn startup companies
This is a list of unicorn startup companies.
In finance, a unicorn is a privately held startup company with a current valuation of US$1 billion or more, across technology centers throughout the world.
Notable lists of unicorn companies are ma ...
*
Robotaxi
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Apolong
References
External links
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{{Autonomous cars and enabling technologies
Self-driving car companies
Technology companies established in 2016