Pony.ai’s CEO thinks robotaxis will be widespread within five years: ‘The technology problem is pretty much already solved’

Pony.ai’s founder and CEO, James Peng, says robotaxis could be a familiar part of city streets within five years. He made the case at the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau on Sept. 8, arguing that the hard part is mostly behind the industry now. “The technology problem is pretty much already solved,” he said. “You’ll be able to hail a robotaxi just like a normal taxi.”

That’s a bold line, but Pony.ai is trying to back it up with real business. The company, founded in 2016, already runs commercial robotaxi services in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai. Peng said the average vehicle gets about 25 rides a day, and that the rider base is broader than the early-adopter crowd people might expect. “It’s definitely not something unique, just for the tech-savvy people to try,” he said.

The bigger play is outside China. In August, Pony.ai said it would expand its partnership with Uber to deploy more than 2,000 robotaxis across Europe, building on a launch in Zagreb, Croatia. It also plans to bring 200 robotaxis to South Korea by 2028, and it already has partnerships in the Middle East and Singapore. Peng said he looks for cities with expensive taxis and friendly regulators. That’s a practical checklist, not a moonshot pitch.

China still gets credit in his telling for giving autonomous driving a system that can actually function at scale. Peng pointed to the country’s supportive regulatory environment and the need to coordinate hardware, software and talent. Pony.ai’s own numbers show the business is growing, but not yet easy: robotaxi revenue hit $12.1 million in the second quarter, up almost 700% from a year earlier, while operating loss was $65.7 million. That is the robotaxi business in miniature: real demand, real expansion, and a very large bill.

Peng also thinks the ripple effects go well beyond rides. If private cars sit parked most of the day, he says, robotaxis could free up parking space and eventually reshape urban planning itself. He also noted a small but telling behavior shift: more female riders in the evening, which he says reflects a sense of safety, privacy and consistency without a human driver.