Toyota was deepening its ties to Pony.ai, a start-up company based in China. These two companies had devised a plan to test self-driving cars on public roads in Beijing and Shanghai. Toyota had planned to invest $400 million, this investment would place the startup at 3 billion. Toyota had been working with Pony.ai since 2019 for the purpose of public autonomous vehicle testing.
Due to the development of this new relationship, the bond between these two companies has tightened. Pony.ai had been testing robot vehicles in Beijing and Guangzhou since late 2018. This start-up has acclaimed the position of being the first start-up to provide with self-driving cars to the general public in China.
Toyota, the world’s biggest carmaker had kept mum about its self-driving car program. This Japanese company had released very little information about the cars and the sensors they were using. This new model would be installed with Toyota’s new chauffeur system. This new software would be completely autonomous and the human element is completely removed from the equation. Toyota also had a second model known as the Guardian which also is an advanced driving system similar to Tesla’s Autopilot.
