Baidu, Xpeng, and Nvidia executives said robotaxis are reaching a tipping point as China expands faster than U.S. rivals.
WeRide has reported a sharp drop in its third-quarter losses, cutting them down to ¥307 million ($43.2 million), as robotaxi orders exploded nearly sevenfold.
The Chinese autonomous driving company posted the results Monday, according to Bloomberg, with robotaxi revenue jumping to ¥35.3 million. That’s a steep turnaround from the ¥1.04 billion hit it took during the same period last year.
The demand spike comes as the company claws for territory in the global race to put fully driverless cars on public roads.
The Guangzhou-based startup is now partnering with Grab and Uber, both of which are trying to bulk up their own fleets. But WeRide isn’t just riding coattails. It’s collecting its own permits, eight countries so far, which include Abu Dhabi and Switzerland, giving it the most autonomous licenses among Asian competitors.
That reach is exactly what the company hopes will help it turn each vehicle into a profit-making unit. The company says it got approval on October 31 to begin charging fares for fully driverless rides in Abu Dhabi, and claims that kicking out the safety drivers is the final step to making each car profitable.
WeRide expands abroad while stocks slide and rivals circle
Despite the big revenue bump, investors have not been kind. Since debuting on the Hong Kong exchange, WeRide’s shares have dropped 24%, dragged down by rising competition and margin worries.
Pony AI, another major Chinese robotaxi player, is expected to report its numbers this week. Everyone’s watching to see how close any of them are to actual profitability.
The Chinese government is paying attention too. Beijing has already rolled out a roadmap to make China the global leader in autonomous driving by 2035. That includes pushing companies like WeRide, Pony AI, and Baidu into more aggressive expansion.
And that expansion is happening faster than their American counterparts. Chinese firms are setting up shop overseas while U.S. players like Waymo, Tesla, and Zoox are still mostly stuck inside domestic borders.
Robin Li, chief executive at Baidu, said Tuesday during an earnings call, “I think robotaxi has reached a tipping point, both here in China and in the U.S.” He said more people have now experienced driverless rides, and the positive feedback on social media is speeding up approvals.
Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Brian Gu of Xpeng have echoed that optimism. Brian, who was previously cautious, now says Xpeng will launch robotaxis in Guangzhou next year, following faster-than-expected progress in hardware and software.
Goldman Sachs estimates this global market could top $25 billion by 2030, but so far, very few operators are anywhere near profit. Baidu’s Apollo Go claims it’s now breaking even in Wuhan, running 1,000+ vehicles, where the fares are 30% cheaper than in Beijing or Shanghai, and still way below what riders pay in the U.S. or Europe. Baidu builds its own electric robotaxis in-house, slashing production costs by 50% compared to third-party models.
Halton Niu, who runs Apollo Go’s overseas business, told CNBC, “Once we can generate profit for every single car in a second-tier city [like Wuhan] in mainland China, we can generate profits in lots of cities across the world.”
He also added, “Scale matters. If you only deploy, for example, 100 to 200 cars in a single city, if you only cover a small area of the city, you can never become profitable.”
US firms lag behind as global trials move forward
Scale is still the main dividing line between companies bleeding cash and those seeing a path to profitability.
In the U.S., Waymo, owned by Alphabet, has about 2,500 vehicles, operating in California, Texas, and Florida, and just entered Tokyo in its first overseas test.
Tesla, meanwhile, only started testing robotaxis in Texas in June, and this week got its first permit to operate in Arizona. Its Cybercab made a public appearance in Shanghai earlier this month, but the company hasn’t announced when or where it plans to offer paid rides.
Zoox, owned by Amazon, is scaling its fleet but hasn’t disclosed any international projects. None of the three American companies have said when they expect to break even.
Apollo Go is now setting up tests in Switzerland, expanding beyond its recent Middle East trials. In fact, just last week, Abu Dhabi’s government gave Apollo Go a green light to charge for rides under its AutoGo label, eight months after trials began in the city.
Still, WeRide beat them to it. The company was granted a permit on October 31 for fully driverless, fare-charging rides in Abu Dhabi. By removing staff from inside the car, the company says it can now hit profitability per vehicle.
Pony.ai isn’t there yet. Its CFO, Leo Haojun Wang, told The Wall Street Journal back in September that the firm is aiming to make each robotaxi profitable by late 2025 or early 2026.
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