During the bustling Chinese New Year holiday, residents of Shenzhen found themselves riding in taxis without drivers, as Pony.ai’s fully autonomous robotaxis filled the transport gap left by human drivers heading home. Passengers traveled without fare surges or service disruptions, turning science fiction into everyday reality and making driverless vehicles one of the most visible symbols of innovation in China’s tech hub.
From February 15 to 23, Pony.ai’s robotaxi orders surged across Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. In Shenzhen alone, paid trips on New Year’s Eve exceeded the company’s total for the entire previous year, with daily paid orders reaching record highs throughout the holiday. This spike highlights not only consumer acceptance but also the operational maturity of China’s autonomous driving sector.
Leading domestic automakers are racing to keep pace with these developments. BYD completed 150,000 kilometers of on-road testing for Level 3 (L3) autonomous vehicles, while Baidu’s Apollo Go expanded to 22 cities, providing over 17 million rides globally. XPeng’s CEO He Xiaopeng called on employees to seize what he termed a “DeepSeek moment,” with the company’s robotaxi pilots expected to launch this year to connect technology, customers, and commercialization.
Service providers like Momenta Technology have also emerged, offering end-to-end intelligent driving solutions that span multiple automation levels. Their systems are now deployed by major Chinese automakers including SAIC, BYD, GAC, Chery, Dongfeng, Changan, and Geely, supporting the rapid scaling of autonomous technologies. Analysts predict that 2026 could be the inflection point for broad adoption, moving beyond pilot programs into everyday mobility.
China’s lead in autonomous driving is reinforced by strong policy support. In December 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued road access permits for the country’s first batch of L3 conditional automated vehicles, including Changan’s Deepal SL03 and BAIC’s Arcfox Alpha-S. These approvals mark the transition from testing to compliant commercialization, enabling a new wave of ecosystem growth.
Technological innovation further bolsters China’s position. Extensive 5G coverage, dominance in new-energy vehicles, and advanced vehicle-road-cloud integration are enabling larger operational zones for robotaxis, while domestic AI and computing power investments, such as the partnership between Moore Threads and Pony.ai, are driving L4 capabilities toward commercialization.
The economic implications are significant. L3 road access is expected to reshape the automotive ecosystem into a trillion-yuan industry, benefiting upstream suppliers of LiDAR, maps, and high-performance chips, midstream automakers shifting to software and service models, and downstream sectors such as insurance and smart traffic management. Financial forecasts project China’s robotaxi market could reach $47 billion by 2035, with a fleet of 1.9 million vehicles capturing a 25 percent share of shared mobility.
