As we enter 2025, global capital begins to vote for autonomous driving with real money. Following this, the industry is approaching the threshold of moving from technology validation to mass commercialization, and the signals of industrial change are

The race for autonomous driving is ushering in a 'Hong Kong Stock Exchange moment'.

On November 6th, the leading domestic autonomous driving company Pony.ai successfully returned to the Hong Kong stock exchange for listing, creating the largest IPO for autonomous driving in 2025 and also becoming the largest IPO in the AI sector of

It has been less than a year since Pony.ai rang the opening bell on the Nasdaq stock market. From being the first Robotaxi company listed on US stocks to the first autonomous driving company listed on Hong Kong stocks, Pony.ai has completed a rapid d

It is noteworthy that just three months before Pony.ai's listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange, Cathie Wood, known as the female Buffett, invested in an L4 autonomous driving company in China for the first time under her ARKQ fund. In just a month,

Why is international capital re-betting on autonomous driving at this time? Is the secondary listing of Pony.ai a sign of an industry inflection point?)

Woodie continually increased its holdings, and growth tech stocks have welcomed a reevaluation of value

One detail is that the ARKQ fund under the management of Woodie was founded on the day when Pony.ai disclosed its second-quarter report, with an initial investment of US$12.9 million. Less than a month later, on September 17th and 18th respectively,

According to its performance report, Pony.ai has shown a strong running momentum in the first half of this year. The financial report indicates that the company achieved revenue of US$35.43 million (approximately RMB 254 million) in the first half of

More than just the Woody Sister has been drawn into the compelling performance of this dark horse. Since the second quarter, British Baillie Gifford has invested over US$100 million in the company, and a total of 14 top international institutions suc

Among the international capital giants, the most market-focused ones are the “Woodie” and BRC Investment: the former is famous for capturing “disruptive innovation”, with its ARK Invest focusing on investing in technology stocks with “destructive inn

Both are iconic institutions known for long-term investments. They have collectively placed large bets on companies like Tesla and Nvidia in their early stages and reaped tenfold returns. Therefore, they are often regarded as the "weathercock" for ob

From its model, Pony.ai's stage characteristics are highly similar to Tesla's from 2009 to 2012: continuous investment during the technology ramp-up period, financial pressure, but rapid growth in R&D intensity and patent reserves. This structural op

On the other hand, in recent years, the Hong Kong stock market has provided a fertile ground for the globalization strategic needs of Chinese technology companies in terms of policy support, institutional optimization, valuation advantages, and inter

Under the current macro-interest rate environment and the narrative of AI, profound changes are taking place in the valuation logic of growth technology stocks - the low-interest-rate environment provides more favorable financing conditions for long-

Therefore, international funds have begun to reassess the long-term growth potential of the autonomous driving sector. Behind the concentrated allocation of capital is not only recognition of Pony.ai as a benchmark enterprise, but also the realizatio

In the latest ARK Fund report, ARK Invest Big Ideas 2025, Robotaxi has been recognized as one of the most disruptive industries in the next five years. It is expected that by 2030, the global Robotaxi market size will reach $10 trillion, with a total

The judgment of this development prospect has been echoed by many international organizations. In recent years, the autonomous driving industry has been attracting capital's attention and has also experienced bubbles and lows. Woodie Sister once poin

Double-line commercialization speeds up, and cost breakthroughs drive the 'profit schedule'.

In fact, the success criteria of running cost models apply to most players in the technology industry. From the perspective of the growth of technology companies, the stage of technological R&D investment, phased losses, and low profit margins are th

To achieve cost efficiency, technology companies must first excel in capital, technology, and market. Therefore, mass production road testing capability has become an important dimension to measure the strength of Robotaxi enterprises.

Currently, Pony.ai has over 720 Robotaxis and more than 170 Robotrucks, with the number of Robotaxis expected to reach a thousand by the end of the year. Pony.ai CEO Peng Jun believes that “Autonomous driving must be developed in China, where there a

In China, Pony.ai is currently the only company that has obtained driverless travel service licenses in the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, and has launched fully automated fee-charging operations. Meanwhile, its

As of 2025, Pony.ai has accumulated more than 70 million kilometers of testing and operational mileage, including over 10 million kilometers of fully driverless road testing mileage.

If mass production road testing capabilities are the foundation for the large-scale commercial deployment of Robotaxi, then technology is the most critical engine for optimizing cost models.

Since June, the seventh-generation L4 Robotaxi from Pony.ai, which is in partnership with BAIC, Toyota, and GAC, has begun mass production and has completed its production ramp-up to enter stable production. It has also received L4 autonomous driving

As an L4 solution that bears the mission of fully automated driving scale-up and commercialization, the seventh-generation Robotaxi model no longer uses an industrial computer, but instead adopts Xiaoma i-driving's self-developed vehicle-grade domain

Pony.ai is the world's first and only company to use automotive-grade SoC computing chips to achieve L4 full autonomous Robotaxi. The bill of materials (BOM) cost of the seventh-generation autonomous hardware kit has been rapidly reduced by 70% compa

According to a research report by Citibank in September 2025, Pony.ai's seventh-generation Robotaxi has the lowest bill of materials (BOM) cost for its autonomous driving system solution among all fully automated Robotaxi companies worldwide.

Zhang Ning, the vice president of Pony.ai and head of Robotaxi's autonomous driving service business, stated that, In cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, when the number of Robotaxi deployments reaches 1,000, the operation will re

Pony.ai has seen a clearer path to profitability in its Robotruck business.

For B-end scenarios such as main lines and dedicated lines, we will reuse 80% of Robotaxi technology and launch self-driving cargo services. We will first achieve single-line profitability through the B-end to support the long-term technical iteratio

Under the accelerated commercialization of dual-line technology, Pony.ai has successfully crossed the stage of technical validation and entered the acceleration cycle of large-scale operation. The profit timeline is becoming increasingly clear as wel

Financial data confirms this trend - as its core business, Robotaxi passenger fare revenue has achieved a year-on-year surge of approximately 800% and over 300% in the first and second quarters of 2025 respectively. The daily average orders of fully

Based on the current commercialization speed, Pony.ai expects to achieve unit economic balance for single-vehicle operations by 2025 and start moving towards large-scale commercialization of Robotaxi.

"World Model" Builds Core Moat, Transforms Technical Barriers into Double Dividends

As the capital market applauds Pony.ai's commercial progress, its technical core, PonyWorld, is quietly building an insurmountable moat around it.

The world model is a simulation closed loop of the physical world. This simulation training environment generated based on the reinforcement learning paradigm is not a single model, but a complete autonomous driving system covering perception, decisi

Based on this, Pony.ai has created a virtual driver that is suitable for various vehicle models and application scenarios. With the three core capabilities of generating scenarios and sensor data through the world model, highly realistic simulations,

This strong technological barrier also directly translates into a dual dividend of security and cost reduction.

In terms of safety, Pony.ai's autonomous driving system has achieved zero accidents in full-scene, all-weather, and full autonomous driving operations for 500,000 hours. The takeover rate is as low as once per million kilometers, far superior to the

Behind the astonishing operational data comes the comprehensive upgrade of the L4 safety redundancy system. After being fully verified in simulation and real-world environments, the newly upgraded safety system can effectively respond to various sing

In terms of cost, the virtual training provided by the world model has greatly reduced the investment in real-road testing vehicles and manpower, as well as significantly shortened the research and development cycle of the new generation autonomous d

The competitive advantage of reducing R&D costs through technological support is also reflected in Pony.ai's hardware self-development capability. Its domain controller, self-developed based on four NVIDIA Drive Orin-X chips, has a computing power of

It is worth mentioning that Tesla, known for its disruptive innovation, recently disclosed a new project called the 'World Simulator'. The system is designed to create an infinitely realistic virtual training ground for its autonomous driving and rob

As early as 2020, Pony.ai took the lead in completing the technological transformation by adopting the 'learning by practicing' (virtual training) model to build this world model that can generate infinite scenarios and begin iterative evolution. Thi

From the capital operation of Pony Auto dual-listed on Hong Kong stock market to the accelerated promotion of commercialization for both Robotaxi and Robotruck businesses, and then to the technology moat built by the world model, the development traj

【Conclusion】

The intensive layout of international capital, the continuous validation of business models, and the constant reinforcement of technological barriers all point to a conclusion: the Hong Kong stock market moment of autonomous driving is not only a cap

Pony.ai has built a solid financial foundation for its future development through the dual listing structure of US stock + Hong Kong stock, which has not only gained recognition from international capital but also opened up channels for mainland fund

This article is from the WeChat public account “Shukexue”(ID: sktxs0)