Chinese Startups Floor the Pedal in a Driverless Car Race
With foreign rivals still struggling to break into China, startups Roadstar.ai and Pony.ai plan to be on the road as early as next year.
Pony.ai vehicles on the road during a Beijing permit test.
Source: Pony.ai via Globe NewswireA clutch of Chinese startups are accelerating efforts to get autonomous vehicles onto roads in the world’s biggest auto market, a country their American peers from Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo to General Motors Co.’s Cruise may find tough to crack.
Roadstar.ai is testing electric self-driving cars in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen and hopes to get 1,500 of them into the business districts of major cities by 2020. Sequoia Capital-backed Pony.ai plans to deploy a fleet of at least 20 self-driving vehicles for public ride-hailing services in Guangzhou as soon as next year, co-founder James Peng said in a recent interview. And Daimler-backed Momenta just inked a contract with the government of eastern Suzhou to deploy a self-driving fleet in the city within the year and open the service to citizens “at a suitable time.”