Connected Car
Toyota is teaming with autonomous driving company Pony.ai to mass-produce self-driving taxis for China. A three-way joint venture (JV) between the car manufacturer, Pony.ai and GAC Toyota – an existing JV between Toyota and GAC, a Chinese state-owned automaker – has been confirmed to deliver “large-scale deployment of fully driverless robotaxis.”The partnership will get underway later this year with an investment of nearly $140 million from GAC Toyota. This will see it provide Pony.ai with EVs equipped with Toyota’s redundant systems that are suitable for Level 4 autonomous driving development. It is not yet clear how many GAC Toyota EVs will be supplied, but they will then be retro-fitted with Pony.ai’s autonomous driving tech for use as part of its self-driving taxi network, PonyPilot+. Related :Toyota Robotaxis Tested in TexasEarlier this year, a Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicle equipped with Pony.ai’s sixth-generation autonomous driving software and hardware system started public road testing in both Beijing and Guangzhou.