Pony.ai unveils 7th gen self-driving platform, plans for mass production this year

Pony.ai offers its autonomous driving platform on a range of vehicles, including all-electric passenger robotaxis and long-distance freight trucks. | Source: Pony.ai

Pony.ai Inc. this week announced its seventh-generation autonomous driving system. The company said it plans to mass-produce its systems by the middle of this year.

“2025 marks the inaugural year of Pony.ai’s mass-produced robotaxis,” stated Dr. James Peng, co-founder and CEO of Pony.ai.

“Achieving scaled production hinges on three critical cornerstones, which form the foundation of Pony.ai’s strategy: advancing technology readiness, enforcing product integration, and refining operational capabilities,” he said. “Over the past few years, we have refined these pillars, positioning us well to deploy robotaxis safely and reliably.”

Founded in 2016, Pony.ai said its vehicle-agnostic Virtual Driver technology stack integrates proprietary software, hardware, and services. The company has headquarters in Guangzhou, China, and Fremont, Calif.

Latest driving kit designed for affordability

The seventh-generation system features an automotive-grade autonomous driving kit (ADK) with an extended product lifecycle, delivering enhanced stability and safety for passengers, said Pony.ai.

The company said continuous design optimizations have also reduced the total bill-of-materials (BOM) costs by 70%. This also came with an 80% decrease in autonomous driving computation (ADC) and a 68% cut in solid-state lidar, in each case compared with its predecessor.

In addition, Pony.ai said its modular platform architecture allows adaptation across multiple vehicle models, ranging from the three robotaxi models to robotruck services down the road. The company is also using simulation to train its systems.

“The safety requirements for L4 systems inherently surpass those of human drivers, which we believe is unattainable through merely imitating human behavior,” said Dr. Tiancheng Lou, chief technology officer of Pony.ai. “Our proprietary PonyWorld generates realistic scenarios, conducts high-fidelity simulations, and establishes behavior evaluation benchmarks to make our autonomous decision-making go beyond human capability.”

“Building on this advanced technology, our seventh-generation autonomous driving system not only makes L4 autonomous driving possible but also ensures scalability at a manageable cost,” he added.

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Pony.ai and partners prep robotaxis

Pony.ai operates robotaxi, robotruck, and privately owned vehicle (POV) business units to enable the mass production and deployment of autonomous vehicles (AVs) across transportation use cases. The company announced the seventh-generation system alongside the first public showcase of its robotaxi lineup at the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition. It featured vehicles developed with Toyota, BAIC, and GAC.

Toyota and Pony.ai have been working together since since 2023. This partnership has led to the launch of the Toyota bZ4X Robotaxi, the first production model featuring Pony.ai’s latest system. It also launched the new BAIC and GAC Robotaxi models — the ARCFOX Alpha T5 and second-generation Aion V.

Earlier this month, Pony.ai obtained a testing permit for SAE Level 4 autonomous driving from Luxembourg’s Ministry of Mobility and Public Works. In addition, the company operates a paid, fully driverless robotaxi service in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen, China.

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