Xiao Ma Intelligent Driving (02026) Wang Haojun: Financial indicators do not fully reflect technological value, 2023 may become a year of commercial verification.

After the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially announced the conditional admission license for the first batch of L3-level autonomous driving models in China, the commercial path of autonomous driving is gradually becoming clear. Compared to L3, the commercialization of Robotaxi (autonomous driving taxis) is entering a "show of strength" era. Recently, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis Group also announced their progress in Robotaxi; Tesla officially started fully autonomous Robotaxi testing in Austin; Waymo disclosed its operating data - from 2025 to now, the cumulative number of trips has exceeded 14 million, more than three times higher than in 2024, and is expected to exceed 20 million trips by the end of the year; and Pony.ai (02026) announced that the seventh generation Robotaxi has achieved profitability per vehicle in Guangzhou. Faced with the first achievement of profitability per vehicle, at a media communication meeting on December 16, Pony.ai co-founder and CFO Wang Haojun once again stated the goal of achieving a break-even point for the company before 2030. Setting goals aside, Wang Haojun further explained the financial and technological aspects that investors are concerned about, stating, "Although financial indicators cannot fully reflect the technological value, 2030 will indeed be a key year in verifying the commercialization path. In addition, the profitability per vehicle mainly depends on the balance between cost control and revenue scale. The improvement on the revenue side is closely related to economies of scale - only by reaching a certain level of operation scale can fixed costs be effectively diluted and vehicle utilization rates be increased, laying the foundation for sustainable profitability." In fact, in terms of its operating scale, Pony.ai has long been one of the leading companies in the Robotaxi industry in China. According to observations by GMTEight, Pony.ai plans to conduct fully autonomous Robotaxi operations in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, with an expected total operating area exceeding 2,000 square kilometers. By then, Pony.ai will accumulate over 55 million kilometers of global autonomous driving road testing, and the seventh-generation Pony Alpha T5 co-developed with BAIC and the E-An Dragon Robotaxi co-developed with GAC officially started operations in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other places in November this year. At the same time, the number of Robotaxi vehicles of the company exceeded 680 in the first half of the year.