Toyota Motor Investment Co., GAC Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. and Silicon Valley partner Pony.ai announced Friday they would form a joint venture to advance the mass production and large-scale deployment of fully driverless robotaxis.
The joint venture company will be established this year with an estimated investment of nearly $140 million.
GAC Toyota Motor Co, Ltd, headquartered in Guangzhou, China, will provide Pony.ai with Toyota-branded battery electric vehicles.
The vehicles are equipped with Toyota’s vehicle redundant systems that are suitable for L4 autonomous driving development and will also have Pony.ai’s advanced autonomous driving technology.
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They will run on Pony.ai’s robotaxi network platform, PonyPilot+.
"The joint venture combines Pony.ai's world-class autonomous driving technology and robotaxi operations experience, Toyota’s highly regarded vehicle technologies and GTMC's advanced production experience," Pony.ai said in a release. "It will provide the capacity for scaled-up robotaxi services, encourage the full commercialization of advanced autonomous mobility and drive the development of the entire industry into a new stage."
A joint venture signing ceremony was held Friday.
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Pony.ai and Toyota announced they would work together to advance the development of autonomous vehicles in China in 2019, testing on public roads that September using Toyota's Lexus RX 450h model and Pony.ai’s autonomous driving systems.
In April, they tested the Toyota's Lexus RX 450h model and Pony.ai’s autonomous driving systems on public roads in Beijing and Guangzhou.
Among its self-owned fleets, Pony.ai has a combined fleet of around 200 Toyota and Lexus brand robotaxis located in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
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"This is not only an important step for Toyota to carry out 'Chinese-style succession and evolution' but also a new stage in our business cooperation with Pony.ai," Toyota China CEO Tatsuro Ueda said in a statement provided to Reuters.
Reuters contributed to this report.
