On the early morning of October 18th Beijing time, Pony. ai officially submitted its IPO prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), planning to list on NASDAQ with the stock code "PONY". Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and Huatai Securities serve as lead underwriters for it. According to the overseas listing filing of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Xiaoma Zhixing plans to issue no more than 98.1495 million ordinary shares.
About two weeks ago, the highly anticipated Tesla "We, Robot" Robotaxi event was officially held. Tesla's Robotaxi model Cybercab has officially unveiled its face. This press conference, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk called a "day in history," once again made Robotaxi a global focus.
Tesla has completely ignited the Robotaxi industry, and Pony.com has impacted the "world's top Robotaxi stock"... Recently, the Robotaxi industry has been receiving continuous positive news, which not only demonstrates the recovery of the autonomous driving track, but also shows the dawn of commercialization of Robotaxi to the outside world. Industry insiders believe that advanced autonomous driving is about to usher in its "iPhone moment".
Commercialization potential in the prospectus: significant increase in revenue, narrowing of losses
According to the prospectus, in 2022, 2023, and the first half of 2024, Xiaoma Zhixing's revenue scale will be 68.39 million US dollars, 71.9 million US dollars, and 24.72 million US dollars respectively, with a cumulative revenue of over 165 million US dollars (approximately 1.2 billion yuan), making it the L4 autonomous driving company with the highest revenue scale in China at present.
It should be pointed out that Xiaoma Zhixing's revenue has been growing year after year, with a year-on-year increase of 101.2% in revenue scale in the first half of 2024. At the same time, its net loss is significantly narrowing. This is undoubtedly a strong proof of the commercialization of its Robotaxi business.
As is well known, the research and development of autonomous driving requires huge investment and is a very "money burning" field. Before entering commercialization, losses are bound to increase. Fortunately, the net loss of Xiaoma Zhixing has shown a gradually narrowing trend. According to the prospectus, from 2022 to 2023, Xiaoma Zhixing's pre adjustment net losses were $148 million and $125 million, respectively. In the first half of 2024, Xiaoma Zhixing incurred a pre adjustment loss of 51.78 million US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 25.6%.
According to the prospectus, as of June 30, 2024, the total amount of cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments, and restricted cash was $473 million (approximately RMB 3.437 billion), indicating sufficient funds. Xiaoma Zhixing expects that this can ensure the safe and stable operation of the company for about 5 years.
Over the past few years, Xiaoma Zhixing has gained the favor of many well-known institutions and OEMs. Before its IPO, Xiaoma Zhixing went through 7 rounds of financing, involving a total amount of over 1.3 billion US dollars. In addition to state-owned enterprises such as China Merchants Capital, top tier car companies such as Toyota and FAW Group, as well as well-known venture capitalists such as Sequoia China, IDG Capital, Wuyuan Capital, CPE Yuanfeng, Fidelity Capital, and Carlyle Investment Group, and capital support from the Middle East, the investors behind it were also involved. Toyota is the strategic investor with the highest shareholding ratio, while Sequoia is the earliest and highest financial investor.
'Unable to make money' was the biggest concern of the capital market for the autonomous driving industry in the past, and the healthy financial data disclosed in Xiaoma Zhixing's prospectus, as well as the commercialization potential reflected in it, undoubtedly added more confidence to the autonomous driving industry.
In addition to Xiaoma Zhixing, there are also autonomous driving related companies such as Momenta, Zongmu Technology, Horizon Robotics, Black Sesame Intelligence, and Wenyuan Zhixing that are going public this year, and the autonomous driving track is experiencing a resurgence of enthusiasm.
In fact, this is not the first wave of autonomous driving craze in the capital market. As early as several years ago, autonomous driving has repeatedly become the darling of capital.
Differently, the past financing boom was an urgent need for various autonomous driving companies to replenish their blood and prolong their lives; And what this round of IPO frenzy shows is that these companies are stocking up ammunition for the upcoming new stage of commercialization.
The dawn of commercialization of Robotaxi is emerging
Why does Tesla, a giant car company, want to squeeze into the Robotaxi track now? Why did multiple top autonomous driving players choose to launch at this point in time?
The industry generally believes that the second half of the automotive industry will be intelligent with autonomous driving at its core, and Robotaxi is one of the most important application scenarios for autonomous driving, even hailed as the "pearl on the crown of autonomous driving".
How heavy is the Robotaxi track for investors? Wall Street analysts say investors may start to re evaluate Tesla as a "future mobility" company rather than a car company, reflecting an 11% increase in stock price after the company announced plans to launch Robotaxi.
The release of a Robotaxi model that will only be mass-produced two years later can significantly shake the stock price of the world's largest car company by market value, and its significance is evident.
In fact, from the ups and downs of Robotaxi in the capital market, it is not difficult to see that its commercialization progress has indeed experienced setbacks. Immature technology, high costs, and regulatory restrictions have always been seen as the main factors constraining the development of the industry.
Until today, the situation has changed.
In terms of technology, the industry generally believes that autonomous driving technology is no longer a limiting factor for the commercialization of Robotaxi. Xiaoma Zhixing CTO Lou Tiancheng also stated that there are no technical obstacles to autonomous driving at present, and the technological progress is already halfway through.
In terms of costs closely related to making money, in the past, the cost of modifying a single Robotaxi car was as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the research and development investment was too large, which also made it difficult to make profits. Driven by core players in industries such as Xiaoma Zhixing, through technological breakthroughs, supply chain optimization, and economies of scale, laser radar costs, labor costs, and vehicle costs have all significantly decreased.
At the same time, with the basic establishment of the "golden triangle" model of car companies, autonomous driving, and operation platforms, the optimization of operational efficiency has also led to a gradual decrease in Robotaxi's unit service costs.
According to a research report by Guosheng Securities, the cost of autonomous vehicles has dropped to below 200000 yuan, which is expected to significantly reduce operational service costs. Taking Apollo Go under Baidu as an example, the sixth generation of Apollo Go driverless vehicle equipped with Baidu Apollo's sixth generation intelligent system solution has reduced the cost of the whole vehicle by 60% compared with the fifth generation vehicle, and the price has dropped to 200000 yuan.
Regulatory authorities are also constantly making efforts.
Currently, the government has placed the intelligent connected vehicle industry at a strategic level. Major first and second tier cities in China have opened up pilot access in policy dimensions, actively opened up supervision, expanded road testing scope, and explored preliminary rule definitions for product access and commercial operation. According to institutional research, as of June 2024, 51 cities have introduced pilot demonstration policies for autonomous driving. Among them, seven cities including Wuhan, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai have issued autonomous vehicle qualifications to multiple enterprises and have successively entered the stage of fully autonomous commercialization pilot.
At the recently held 2024 World Intelligent Connected Vehicle Conference, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong mentioned that he will improve relevant standards and regulations for intelligent connected vehicles, promote the revision of laws and regulations on road traffic safety, insurance, etc., establish and improve a high-level autonomous driving supervision system, and accelerate the formulation of functional safety, network safety, and data security standards.
The emphasis on top-level design undoubtedly injects a shot in the arm into the industry.
Pioneer Xiaoma Zhixing: Achieve a normalization of bicycle gross profit next year
The development of the industry cannot be separated from the accelerated promotion of commercialization by players.
Founded in 2016, Xiaoma Zhixing was one of the earliest Robotaxi entrants in China. Now it seems that Xiaoma Zhixing will also become a pioneer in the large-scale commercialization of Robotaxi.
At the end of 2018, PonyPilot launched China's first Robotaxi service and became one of the few companies in the world to achieve fully autonomous driving, truly leading the global Robotaxi towards mass production and commercialization.
Meanwhile, Xiaoma Zhixing is also the first company in China to obtain autonomous driving service licenses in four major first tier cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. As of now, its Robotaxi has accumulated over 33.5 million kilometers of autonomous driving road test mileage, including nearly 4 million kilometers of unmanned driving road test mileage.
In the automotive industry, economies of scale have always been the "truth" for making money, and in the Robotaxi field, economies of scale are also an important driving force for commercialization.
Currently, Xiaoma owns over 250 Robotaxis. As of June 30, 2024, the registered users of the "PonyPilot" app have exceeded 220000, and the daily average order volume for each fully unmanned Robotaxi has exceeded 15 within six months, achieving a key milestone in the large-scale commercialization of Robotaxi.
It is worth mentioning that currently, Xiaoma Zhixing is rapidly promoting the mass production of pre installed autonomous driving vehicles with a scale of thousands of units, and is working with partners to develop the seventh generation of autonomous driving software and hardware systems and vehicle platforms.
Taking the mass production cooperation between Xiaoma Zhixing and Toyota as an example, the two sides will deploy thousands of Platinum Smart 4X Robotaxi vehicles in first tier cities in China from 2025 to 2026, which will be produced by GAC Toyota's new energy production line and provide autonomous driving services for the public.
The establishment of the highly respected "Golden Triangle" model of car companies, autonomous driving, and operation platforms also involves the practice of Xiaoma Zhixing.
On the one hand, Xiaoma Zhixing has reached strategic cooperation or established joint ventures with several top domestic and foreign vehicle manufacturers, including Toyota, GAC Group, SAIC Group, etc., actively promoting the large-scale production and service landing of autonomous vehicles from the aspects of forward research and development, production line construction, supply chain construction, product announcement, road testing, etc.
On the other hand, the third-party travel platforms and taxi operators cooperated and accessed by Xiaoma Zhixing include Ruqi Travel, Alipay, Gaode Taxi, Jinjiang Taxi, Singapore Kangfugao Group, which are far ahead of the industry in terms of scale and number, opening up a market and user base for the large-scale landing of Robotaxi fleet and services.
According to Frost&Sullivan's prediction, Robotaxi services will be commercialized around 2026, with a global market size expected to reach $290 million by 2025 and further reach $66.6 billion by 2030. China is expected to become the largest Robotaxi market, with market sizes expected to reach $200 million and $39 billion by 2025 and 2030, respectively.
As a pioneer, Xiaoma Zhixing is likely to take an early step. Xiaoma Zhixing expects to achieve a break even point in bicycle operations (gross profit turning positive) by 2025 and begin to move towards large-scale commercialization of Robotaxi.
Zhang Ning, Vice President of Xiaoma Zhixing and Head of Robotaxi's Autonomous Driving Travel Business, said, "In cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, when the Robotaxi deployment reaches 1000 units, the operation will reach the break even point. Beyond this point, for every additional vehicle, our costs will be lower and our gross profit margin will be higher, entering a positive stage of continuous self generation