Toyota and Pony.ai’s collaboration history

In August 2019, a strategic partnership was reached with Toyota to start cooperation on autonomous driving technology. Based on Pony.ai's autonomous driving system solution PonyAlpha and Lexus models, the two parties began to develop the first Robotaxi model of their cooperation and started testing projects on public roads in China. In February 2020, Toyota invested US$400 million in Pony.ai to further deepen cooperation in autonomous driving technology and products. In November 2020, the two parties cooperated to start the development and standardized production of hundreds of Lexus RX Robotaxi vehicles based on PonyAlpha X, the fifth-generation autonomous driving software and hardware system of Pony.ai. In February 2021, hundreds of Lexus RX Robotaxi vehicles rolled off the standardized modified production line in batches and were put into use in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen to provide autonomous driving travel services to the public, and successively obtained driverless test licenses and even commercial charging licenses in the four places. In January 2022, Pony.ai started the research and development of the sixth-generation autonomous driving system and Toyota Sina Robotaxi vehicles with Toyota, aiming at "full driverless driving". It adopts L4 fully redundant safety design, provides customized driverless travel cabin experience, and continuously optimizes the performance and cost of the overall solution. It is the world's first Robotaxi model to use solid-state LiDAR and NVIDIA DRIVE Orin's L4 autonomous driving computing unit. In 2023, Toyota Sina Robotaxi models will be put into Beijing and Guangzhou to provide transportation capacity for Pony.ai's autonomous driving travel services and further expand the layout of fully unmanned Robotaxi. In November 2023, Pony.ai, Toyota China and GAC Toyota released the first cooperative model, the Bozhi 4X Robotaxi concept car, at the 2023 CIIE, which will be equipped with the seventh-generation Pony.ai autonomous driving system solution. The three parties plan to launch 1,000 Bozhi 4X Robotaxi in the Chinese market, which will be produced by GAC Toyota's fifth production line (i.e. new energy production line). In April 2024, Pony.ai, Toyota China, and GAC Toyota jointly established Zhuifeng Intelligent Technology (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. in Guangzhou with an investment of over RMB 1 billion. The company integrates Pony.ai's fully autonomous driving technology capabilities, as well as Toyota's experience in fully autonomous driving vehicle platforms and redundant design, and R&D and manufacturing of new energy vehicles, and injects them into the mass production and R&D of future Robotaxi models and autonomous driving system solutions. From 2025 to 2026, after the production of thousands of Bozhi 4X Robotaxi vehicles rolls off the assembly line, they will be put into operation in first-tier cities in China, and the public can call them through Pony.ai's travel service platform and third-party cooperative taxi platforms.