If you want it, let's do it... Pony.ai is a self-driving car startup that claims to be based in both Silicon Valley and Guangzhou, China — and it just got a $400M investment from the world's largest car maker, Toyota. Now Pony's riding high at a $3B valuation. Pony has been testing the robotaxi life since 2018, and is now one of China's leading self-driving car companies (along with Baidu and WeRide). Pony and Toyota's AI love story:
- Pony has been testing robotaxis since 2018 and first partnered with Toyota in 2019.
- $400M later, Pony's relationship with Toyota is closer than ever — they're going to be co-developing their autonomous tech.
Toyota has been kinda secretive... about its self-driving car projects — but its investment in Pony suggests things are getting serious. FYI, it's not an exclusive relationship: in 2018 and 2019, Toyota poured around $1B into a similar project with Uber. Toyota's status quo is Priuses, Corollas, and Camrys — so it needs other companies' AI tech to future-proof its vehicles. Because...
Getting ahead of the curve is key... Self-driving cars could be the future, and no company wants to miss out on the future — especially the world's most profitable car company. Instead of wasting time trying to develop its own robocar tech, Toyota (and several other carmakers) are investing big in existing startups: