RIDING in a car with no one behind the wheel must sound like a nightmarish vision. But this is no bad dream, rather a smooth cruise along the roads of Beijing with no one but the vehicle itself driving me to my destination.
When there was no driver, the vehicle waited for pedestrians at zebra crossings and stopped at traffic signals. It moved more quickly in the fast lane and slowed down in traffic.
It also avoided a red light with the dexterity of a skilled driver when it happened to another automobile traveling in the opposite direction. It smoothly stopped to allow me, its passenger, to take a breather before continuing on its way.
I was taking a test drive in Pony.AI's "Robotaxi," an autonomous vehicle powered by many cameras and sensors that functions on artificial intelligence. The steering wheel of the car was in the hands of no human being at all.
There were screens on the dashboard and behind the front seats for the passengers, showing different signal inputs the car was receiving, but the driver's seat and the passenger seat next to it were empty. These inputs appeared to surround the car in the shape of a blue force field, preventing it from colliding with anything on the road.
Pony.ai, which was founded in late 2016 in Fremont, California, has led the way in the deployment of autonomous mobility for the benefit of people in China and the United States.
Pony.ai and Toyota Motor (China) Investment Company Ltd. entered into a memorandum of understanding just a year ago, in 2023. Pony.ai drives on the road using its own driving systems and a Toyota Lexus RX 450h model.
Another model is the Toyota Sienna AutonoMaas (S-AM), which I participated in earlier this week as it began public road testing. It is outfitted with Pony.AI's sixth-generation autonomous driving software and hardware system.
Pony.ai now operates about 200 Toyota and Lexus brand robots among its self-owned fleets, and they are stationed for road testing and public-facing robot operations in all four of China's tier-1 cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
In May of this year, Pony.ai also made history by being the first business in China to be granted permission to conduct autonomous truck "platoon" formation testing in Beijing. This makes them the only firm with permissions in both Beijing and Guangzhou.
The GSB Hub published this content on 16 Oct,2024.