Pony.ai CEO James Peng says robotaxis have hit their inflection point as the company plans Europe city by city
Pony.ai founder and CEO James Peng told a Turin conference that fully driverless robotaxis are already serving tens of thousands of rides a day, and that scaling to more cities is now the hard part.
- 20 to 25
- tens of thousands
- nearly 20 years
- early 2023
What Happened
Pony.ai founder and CEO James Peng spoke with Morgan Samet of Lingotto in a fireside chat at Wave by Vento 2026 in Turin, Italy, about the evolution of autonomous driving and what comes next. Drawing on nearly two decades of work on the technology, Peng described the journey from early research to fully driverless operations and argued the industry has reached a turning point. The conversation covered Pony.ai's international expansion, the role of partnerships, and how autonomous mobility could reshape urban transportation. The published transcript was edited and condensed for clarity.
Peng and his team believed driving, a relatively structured problem within physical AI, could eventually be solved because roads and traffic rules are designed by humans.
Pony.ai began fully driverless operations on public roads across hundreds of square kilometers, giving the company confidence in both the technology and its real-world regulatory feasibility.
Peng says the industry's inflection point has already arrived, with passengers being served at scale and tens of thousands of rides daily.
“For me, a defining moment came in early 2023, when Pony.ai began fully driverless operations on public roads across hundreds of square kilometers. That gave us confidence in both the technology and its real-world regulatory feasibility.”
20 to 25
Pony.ai Robotaxis average this many rides per vehicle daily, adding up to tens of thousands of rides a day across the fleet.
- Market potential, including local taxi fares
- A supportive regulatory environment
- Strong local partners
Peng said Europe is particularly important to Pony.ai, though the company approaches it city by city rather than as a single market. It is already expanding through projects in Zagreb and Luxembourg, and has announced plans to bring Pony.ai Robotaxis to London in partnership with Uber. He noted that transportation is highly regulated and that regulators understandably move cautiously because passenger and road safety are directly involved. Pony.ai positions itself as supplying the Virtual Driver, while automakers build the vehicles, ride-hailing platforms such as Uber connect passengers with rides, and local fleet operators handle charging, cleaning, maintenance and other daily operations.
“We're providing a Virtual Driver that delivers a safe, reliable and enjoyable ride. But the rest of the ecosystem is still essential.”
Previously from Pony.ai Inc.
Pony.ai's expansion model in Europe has been discussed publicly by its co-founder and CFO, who described how the company scaled fare-charging driverless rides in China and is now testing a partner-based model in Europe, starting with fully driverless rides in Zagreb. The CFO has also said Pony.ai reached unit economics breakeven in Guangzhou and Shenzhen as its Robotaxi fleet nears 2,000 vehicles, with a plan to put more than 2,000 Robotaxis on European roads with Uber.
- Pony.ai CFO Leo Wang on Robotaxi Unit Economics, Europe and What Comes Next
- Pony.ai CFO Leo Wang on Robotaxi Scale, Zagreb Driverless First and Uber's 2,000-Car Europe Goal
Background drawn from MotorClaw's earlier coverage of Pony.ai Inc.'s official releases.
Why this matters
Peng's remarks frame the next phase of autonomous driving as a regulatory and partnership problem rather than a purely technical one, which affects city regulators, ride-hailing platforms and fleet operators as much as it affects Pony.ai itself. For passengers, the payoff he describes is more convenient shared transport and potentially less urban space given over to parking.
Terms in This Story
- Robotaxi
- A taxi service operated by self-driving vehicles rather than a human driver.
- Virtual Driver
- Pony.ai's name for the software system that drives the vehicle in place of a human driver.
- LiDAR
- A sensor that uses laser pulses to measure distances and help a vehicle perceive its surroundings.
- Fully driverless operations
- Running vehicles on public roads with no human safety driver on board.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.