Pony.ai Product Development History

In April 2017, Pony.ai launched its first generation of self-developed autonomous driving system PonyBrain, which uses Velodyne HDL64's lidar sensor. In 2018, the second-generation lidar was replaced with a 32-line + multi-camera combination, and in June 2018, it obtained the Beijing autonomous driving road test T3 license. In September 2018, the third generation was named PonyAlpha. In terms of software, it supports rapid iteration, and is highly optimized and adaptable to the on-board computing environment; in terms of hardware, the integration is further improved, and it can intelligently obtain accurate perception data according to different road conditions and driving scenarios. In December 2019, the fourth-generation autonomous driving system PonyAlpha2.0 is an integrated system of autonomous driving software and hardware developed based on the PonyBrain platform, which enables the vehicle to have a full-domain view within a range of 200 meters, supports any travel route, and adopts deep multi-source high-precision positioning. In February 2021, the fifth-generation PonyAlpha X system achieved 360-degree blind spot perception and optimized long-tail scene processing capabilities, and was applied to Toyota's Lexus RX450h model. In January 2022, the sixth-generation new system was designed for mass production, and achieved qualitative breakthroughs in perception, computing power, safety redundancy and other aspects. The first batch of models equipped with this system is Toyota S-AM (SIENNA Autono-MaaS), a hybrid electric platform based on the 7-seater Senna, with a total of 23 sensors.