Pony.ai denies joining car-making bandwagon

News of Chinese self-driving company Pony.ai joining the car-making bandwagon first broke half a month ago, and the company has not explicitly denied it until today.

"The recent rumors about Pony.ai making cars are false information, and we are continuing to steadily commercialize smart driving," Sina Tech quoted Pony.ai as saying.

On June 11, 36kr reported that Pony.ai has joined the car-making ranks and set up a team of more than 10 people in Shanghai Jiading.

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Pony.ai's initial plan is to build passenger cars, but it has not yet determined whether they will be used in self-driving fleets or sold to consumers. Pony.ai does not rule out partnerships with car companies, the report said.

In response to the report, caijing.com.cn then quoted Pony.ai sources as saying that its various businesses are advancing rapidly and that it will actively evaluate the prospects of each business segment and adjust its business structure accordingly at any time.

On Wednesday, LatePost reported that Pony.ai has now set up a dozens-person R&D team in Shanghai, with former Xpeng Motors design director Zhao Qian joining the team and taking charge of vehicle design.

The report said Pony.ai is in contact with Geely to build an electric car based on the latter's SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture) platform.

Geely Holdings Group spokesman Yang Xueliang said the company has not communicated with Pony.ai about using the SEA architecture to develop smart electric vehicles and that previous media reports were misunderstood, cls.cn reported Thursday.

Pony.ai was founded in late 2016 and currently has a team of more than 500 people. It has R&D centers in Silicon Valley, Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai, and runs Robo-Taxi operations locally.

In early February, Pony.ai announced that the first self-driving cars equipped with its latest-generation system had officially rolled off the standardized production line and would start all-weather self-driving open road tests in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai, and join the company's Robotaxi fleet for large-scale operations.