- Ambitious Saudi fleet target - Uber partnership drives rollout - Heat complicates pickups Chinese company WeRide plans to have between 7,000 and 10,000 autonomous taxis in Saudi Arabia by the end of the decade, according to a senior executive. The company, which has headquarters in Guangzhou but was founded in California and is listed on the Nasdaq, already operates “robotaxis” in Riyadh in partnership with the ride-sharing app Uber. By the end of the year, the number of its taxis driving in Riyadh will reach 100, WeRide’s head of international and chief financial officer Jennifer Li told AGBI, but this number should grow exponentially over the following years. “It’s not a linear growth,” said Li. The company launched its robotaxis in Riyadh last year, with Uber and local company Ai Driver, operating from the airport. It will soon extend its area of operation to the central Riyadh area of Olaya and launch next year a separate project in the entertainment giga-project city of Qiddiya, just south of the capital. WeRide already has autonomous buses operating in the tourist city of AlUla and has introduced its ‘Robosweeper’ street cleaning vehicles, although they have since had to be recalled, Li said, to be upgraded to deal with the high levels of dust and sand in the GCC. Further reading: - Driverless taxi trials ‘to be opened to Uber passengers in Riyadh’ - Chinese self-driving operator WeRide launches Saudi operations - How I got locked out of Dubai’s autonomous future Saudi Arabia aims to have 15 percent of the country’s public transport vehicles autonomous by 2030. In August 2024 it started installing smart communication devices along roadways that interact with autonomous vehicles. Li said that the response to the self-driving Ubers has generally been positive, although the cars have caused some frustration