Nuked pony.ai, a self-driving startup based in Silicon Valley and Guangzhou, China, is deepening its ties to Toyota. The Japanese auto giant plans to invest $ 400 million in the startup, valuing the startup at $ 3 billion.
pony.ai has been working with Toyota since 2019 on public autonomous vehicle testing. With this new investment, their relationship will become even closer.
pony.ai has been testing robot taxis in Beijing and Guangzhou since late 2018. The startup claims to be the first company to launch an autonomous ride-hailing operation.
Toyota plans to offer a limited ride-hailing pilot in Tokyo during the 2020 summer Olympics. The Japanese company has released some information about its test vehicles and the types of sensors it’s using.
Toyota has a second product called’Guardian,’ which is essentially an advanced driver-assist system akin to Tesla’s autopilot.
