On September 26th, Caixin News Agency reported that Uber and Chinese autonomous driving technology company WeRide announced on Wednesday the establishment of a partnership, planning to introduce WeRide's autonomous vehicles into the Uber platform, with the first stop in the United Arab Emirates.
This cooperation marks the first collaboration between Wenyuan Zhixing and a global ride hailing platform, which will help expand its business beyond China. At the same time, Uber will further promote the application of autonomous taxis on its platform.
In early September, Uber expanded its partnership with Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, to introduce autonomous taxi services to Austin and Atlanta in the United States. In August of this year, Uber also partnered with Cruise, the autonomous driving division of General Motors, to provide Cruise's autonomous vehicles on the platform starting next year.
Uber and Wenyuan Zhixing are expected to launch business in Abu Dhabi by the end of this year. Wenyuan Zhixing has obtained the first and only national level autonomous vehicle license in the UAE, allowing this Chinese company to test and operate autonomous taxis on public roads in the UAE.
Previously, Wenyuan Zhixing had planned to go public in the United States with a valuation of up to $5 billion, but its initial public offering (IPO) plan has been postponed. The company has previously stated that it is completing relevant documents and advancing the listing process.
Currently, Wenyuan Zhixing's business mainly revolves around autonomous driving, such as Robotaxi (autonomous taxi), Robobus (autonomous minibus), Robovan (autonomous freight truck), Robosweeper (autonomous sanitation truck), etc. Between 2021 and 2023, Wenyuan Zhixing sold less than 20 autonomous taxis and nearly 150 autonomous minibuses.
At the end of November 2019, Wenyuan Zhixing launched the country's first fully open Robotaxi commercial operation service for citizens in Guangzhou, and later achieved full commercial coverage of urban roads and highways in Beijing's high-level demonstration zone for autonomous driving. At present, the company is conducting autonomous driving research and development, testing, and operation in 30 cities across 7 countries worldwide.
It is worth noting that the Biden administration proposed a discriminatory ban on Monday, intending to restrict the use of Chinese connected vehicle software, hardware, and vehicles in the United States. This policy change has brought new uncertainty to international cooperation in the field of autonomous driving.