Ring the bell, burn money, out of the game: A record of the "crazy" sprint of intelligent driving in 2025.

By the end of 2025, the bell rang by CIDI on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange marked the end of the "listing frenzy" in the intelligent driving industry for that year. This was the 9th industrial chain company to go public on the Hong Kong stock market that year, from solution providers to chip manufacturers, with over one billion Hong Kong dollars in financing converging into a capital wave. However, as the bell's resonance faded, a more serious challenge turned to 2026: can the "ammunition" raised through the IPO help companies navigate through the commercialization deep waters? When financial statements are no longer covered, the huge research and development investments and the difficult-to-scale profit reality will be laid bare under market scrutiny. Looking ahead to 2026, the industry's revelry will settle into rational differentiation. The focus of the capital market is shifting from chasing "listing stories" to questioning "post-listing performance". Funds will flow more rigorously to companies that have already proven their commercialization capabilities. The main theme of business will switch from "technology demonstration" to "scaling commercialization", seeking real profit breakthroughs in specific scenarios such as ports, mines, and mainline logistics. Following this will be an inevitable industry reshuffle, as the era of "a hundred flowers blooming" draws to a close, and the process of "integration and elimination" will accelerate significantly. Going public is never the endpoint. In 2026, the ultimate test of technology, profitability, and survival will gradually be revealed. Listing frenzy surges: The entire industry chain vies for the Hong Kong stock stage In 2025, the intelligent driving industry chain experienced a collective eruption in the capital market, with companies rushing to go public or file for IPO, covering the entire industry chain from solution providers, core sensors to intelligent cabins. This listing wave had already shown signs in the second half of 2024. Companies such as ROBOSENSE (02498), Horizon Robotics (09660), BLACK SESAME (02533), MINIEYE (02431), had already landed on the capital market, and a batch of companies were in the filing stage, laying the foundation for this wave of enthusiasm. At the beginning of the year, SAIMO became the first smart driving company to go public on the Hong Kong stock market in 2025. SAIMO focuses on intelligent connected car simulation testing business, with investors including Huawei Harper, and Beijing Shunyi State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission investment institutions. This was after four rounds of filing that they finally successfully went public, becoming the first listed company in the world in the field of autonomous driving simulation testing. Subsequently, autonomous driving ride-sharing service provider Pony.ai (02026) and WeRide (00800) both debuted on November 6, achieving a dual listing on "US + Hong Kong" stock exchanges; leading lidar company Heptagon (02525) completed the largest IPO in the global lidar industry. Shortly after, SEYOND (02665), PATEO (02889), Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp. (600699.SH), and other key suppliers also went public. By December 19, CIDI, focusing on unmanned mining trucks, was officially listed, becoming the "world's first listed company for automated mining trucks". While the listed companies formed a cluster, the queue of companies filing for IPOs in front of the IPO gate was growing. Unofficial statistics show that from October to December 2025 alone, eight companies, including Tianting Vision, Four-Five Tech, Evus Tech, and Chongqing Afari Technology, filed for IPO. It is worth noting that, in terms of market share, the successfully listed companies in this wave are mostly leaders in their respective sub-sectors. For example, Heptagon has continuously led in the ADAS lidar market with a market share of 33.0% in the first half of the year; Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp. ranks fourth in the global market share for intelligent cabins and 35.9% for intelligent steering wheels; CIDI is ranked first in the market for solutions for autonomous mining trucks. Behind the flurry of listings is the highly investment-intensive and long-term "marathon" nature of the intelligent driving industry. Public information shows that these companies have gone through multiple rounds of financing before reaching the point of going public: WeRide and Heptagon have had at least ten rounds of financing, PATEO and CIDI have had eight rounds of financing, Pony.ai and SEYOND have had seven rounds. In the backdrop of the industry not yet achieving large-scale profitability, going public financing has become a critical means for companies to obtain continuous funding and support the long marathon of technology development. Why did the listing frenzy concentrate at this time? Several industry insiders have stated that a major characteristic of the intelligent driving industry is the "continual burning of money", with huge research and development expenditures and long periods for returns. Going public financing effectively relieves the financial pressure on intelligent driving companies. It allows companies to better navigate this "long run." Zhang Xiang, Secretary-General of the International Intelligent Transportation Technology Association, analyzed that this trend is mainly driven by two aspects: on one hand, the maturity of the industry chain and the decreasing cost of core components are providing the foundation for commercialization; on the other hand, to achieve fully autonomous driving still requires substantial research and development investments, making going public an important way to support this long-term investment. Under the halo: Common losses and the challenges of delayed commercialization However, going public is far from the finish line. Behind the bell ringing, intelligent driving companies are facing the triple pressures of continuous losses, high R&D expenditures, and slow commercialization, with a huge gap between technological maturity and scalable profitability. Financial data reveals the industry's common survival pressure. During the first half of 2022 to 2025, several top companies accumulated staggering losses: WeRide accumulated losses of approximately 6.557 billion RMB, Pony.ai saw accumulated losses of about 4.63 billion RMB, and have remained in a state of continuous losses. CIDI, representing closed scenarios, also saw losses increase from 263 million RMB in 2022 to 581 million RMB in 2024. Among the nine successful listed companies mentioned above, only SAIMO, Heptagon, and Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp. managed to turn a profit. Huge research and development expenditures are one of the core reasons for the widespread losses. During the first half of 2025, R&D expenditure as a percentage of revenue was abnormally high for several companies: WeRide was at 322%, Pony.ai at 272%, and Horizon Robotics at 147%. BLACK SESAME, specializing in autonomous driving chips, had a R&D spending of over 618 million RMB in the first half of 2025, which was more than twice its operating income. Some industry experts have pointed out that the verification cycle for intelligent driving technology is long, from lab development to vehicle testing and mass production, often taking several years, requiring continuous funding during this period, making it difficult to achieve profitability in the short term. A deeper-level pressure comes from the slow progress of the commercialization process. Taking Robotaxi (autonomous driving taxis) as an example, although leading companies are expanding their test vehicle fleets globally, cities that allow fully autonomous commercialized charging are still few. Zhang Ning, Vice President of Pony.ai, has stated that deploying a fleet of thousands of vehicles in a single city may be necessary to achieve a balance between profit and loss per vehicle, highlighting the huge capital gap before scaling up. "At present, L4 level autonomous driving technology has not fully matured, which hinders users' willingness to pay, making it difficult for companies to gain sustainable revenue," Zhang Xiang, Secretary-General of the International Intelligent Transportation Technology Association, pointed out. Low user willingness to pay, coupled with an overheated market supply and a large number of companies, has led to many companies facing survival pressure. As market competition intensifies, price wars pressure is quickly passed on to upstream suppliers. Even in the upstream hardware sector, such as lidar and domain controllers, where demand has surged due to the popularization of L3 level advanced driving assistance systems, fierce price wars have put manufacturers in a predicament of "increasing revenue without increasing profits", prompting some companies to explore new businesses like Siasun Robot&Automation to find a second growth curve. In Zhang's view, the key to achieving profitability lies in the technology truly maturing and becoming commercialized on a large scale. Currently, there are no companies worldwide that can achieve large-scale implementation of L3-level or higher autonomous driving. If a technological breakthrough is made, the purchasing willingness of car manufacturers will significantly increase, fundamentally improving the industry's revenue model. Therefore, before achieving a critical breakthrough in technology and bringing in scalable income, having sufficient "provisions" - that is, cash reserves - becomes the bottom line for whether a company can support this enduring battle. As of the first half of 2025, Horizon Robotics held a cash reserve of 16.1 billion RMB, which is relatively ample; Pony.ai and WeRide had 5.356 billion and 5.838 billion RMB respectively; SAIMO had only 290 million RMB, and Suzhou Novosense Microelectronics generated a net cash flow from operating activities of -3.08 billion RMB, making the funding situation particularly tense for small and medium-sized enterprises. Elimination competition intensifies: Capital rationality and ruthless reshuffling Behind the halo of the listing frenzy, the intelligent driving industry is experiencing a cold and fast reshuffling. Capital is becoming more rational, accelerating towards concentration in the top players. Industry data shows that the total funding amount for the domestic autonomous driving industry reached a peak of 93.2 billion RMB in 2021, but by 2025, this number had dropped to 35 billion RMB. The contraction of funding size has directly accelerated the elimination process in the industry. Haomo Zhixing, backed by Great Wall Motor and once valued at a hundred billion RMB, was reported to have fallen into a situation of business suspension and salary arrears; similarly, Zongmu Technology, which once received over 2.2 billion RMB in funding, quickly faced an operating crisis after a hasty transition. According to incomplete statistics from 36Kr, at least seven companies that had realized business deployment in the past year have announced bankruptcy, liquidation, or deep restructuring. This means that the industry has transitioned from "barbaric growth" to a cruel "survival of the fittest" elimination game. Momenta's founder and CEO, Cao Xudong, bluntly stated that the competition in the final stages of the intelligent driving industry will culminate in 2026, with only three companies emerging victorious. Behind the reshuffling is a fundamental shift in the standards of capital judgment: the era of attracting investment solely based on technological narrations has ended, and investors are now more focused on verifiable deployment capabilities and clear paths to profitability. This shift is equally evident in the secondary market, where WeRide and Horizon Robotics both saw declines on their first day of listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange, with cumulative losses of nearly 20% to date; CIDI also saw a decline of over 13% on its first day. Reports suggest that as more companies go public in batches, the investment willingness in the primary market for this sector has significantly decreased. On the other side of the reshuffling is the significant concentration of resources towards top companies. In the first half of 2025, Horizon Robotics' share in the Chinese ADAS market had reached nearly 46%, solidifying its leading position. At the same time, industry alliances are deepening: Yunxun Qixing received a strategic investment of one billion US dollars from Great Wall Motor; Zhuoyu Technology received a strategic investment of over 3.6 billion RMB from FAW Group. In Zhang Xiang's view, industry reshuffling and integration will be unavoidable. With significant research and development investments and a long development cycle in intelligent driving, only companies with strong capital and continuous innovation capabilities can move forward. He expects market concentration to further increase, and smaller companies lacking competitiveness may gradually exit, transitioning the industry landscape from "flourishing flowers" to "top concentration." As the elimination competition begins, industry consolidation will continue to deepen. In the end, only those companies that truly possess the capability for large-scale production, extreme cost control, and strong ecological cooperation will be able to survive and win in this marathon. This article was adapted from the WeChat public account "DeepWeb Tencent News", written by Rao Fuying; GMTEight Editor: Chen Yufeng.