Uber (UBER, Financial) announced a collaboration with Pony AI (PONY) to deploy the Chinese autonomous taxi developer's vehicles on its ride-hailing platform. This partnership marks Uber's latest strategic move to enhance its presence in the self-driving taxi market. The deployment will start in a key Middle Eastern market and aims to expand globally. Initially, Pony AI's vehicles will include a safety operator, eventually transitioning to fully autonomous operations.
Recently, Uber has expanded various partnerships to better compete with Lyft (LYFT) and Tesla (TSLA) in the autonomous taxi sector. It has agreements with self-driving technology companies May Mobility and Momenta and has broadened its collaboration with China's WeRide to 15 more cities. Moreover, Uber has strengthened its ties with Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet (GOOGL).
Pony AI, which went public on Nasdaq last November, saw its stock rise nearly 13% in pre-market trading on Tuesday, while Uber's shares dipped by 1%. Despite engineering and regulatory challenges, tech and EV companies are racing towards deploying autonomous taxis at scale. The U.S. federal government is facilitating this by expanding exemptions on specific safety requirements while maintaining mandatory incident reporting.
