Recently, according to report from Yahoo!, the California Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) has revoked Pony.ai’s self-driving car technology test license on the grounds. The reason is that during the test, the driving record of the safety officer on the test permit was not monitored, and it was determined that the company did not supervise the behavior of the safety officer in place.
At present, Pony.ai has confirmed that the news is true, and stated that it has received a notice from DMV, which stated: “Based on the consideration of the driving records of the three safety officers, test license in California will be withdrawn.” At present, Pony.ai also responded to this: “We are fully understanding the matter. At present, Pony.ai’s testing in China is progressing normally.”
It is worth mentioning that in China, Pony.ai has just obtained a manned service (robotaxi) license to provide “the main driver without a safety officer and the co-driver with a safety officer” on public roads in Beijing, and has been approved to put 100 autonomous vehicles in Guangzhou. The car provides a taxi service for a period of five years. This is the first Chinese taxi operation license issued to an autonomous driving company, and it is also the first time in China that the autonomous vehicle operation service is given the same status as the ordinary taxi service from the policy level.
On April 24, 2022, Pony.ai announced that it had won the bid for the 2022 taxi capacity index in Nansha District, Guangzhou, becoming the first domestic taxi operation license issued to an autonomous driving company; on April 28, Pony.ai obtained the Beijing Municipal Government’s first taxi operation license. The first batch of “unmanned demonstration application road test” notices in the intelligent networked vehicle policy pioneer area was approved to provide the public with the autonomous driving travel service of “no safety officer in the main driver’s seat, and a safety officer in the co-pilot”.
According to the data, Pony.ai was established at the end of 2016 and was co-founded by Peng Jun and Lou Tiancheng. It is the first company in the world to launch a self-driving travel service (Robotaxi) in both China and the United States. By March 2022, Pony.ai also announced the completion of the D round of financing, with an overall valuation of US$8.5 billion. The valuation of this round has increased by about 65% compared with the previous round of financing. It is the self-driving company with the most financing and the highest valuation in China.
