Conversation with Pony.ai CFO Wang Haojun: The biggest competitor in the autonomous driving industry is ourselves.

Since 2026, the global autonomous driving industry has entered a critical turning point, gradually moving from technology R&D and validation to the stage of large-scale commercial deployment. Meanwhile, behind the industry’s rapid development, multiple challenges—such as technology, costs, policies, and the ecosystem—remain unresolved, testing the entire industry chain’s ability to make coordinated breakthroughs.

As a representative company in autonomous driving, Xiaoma Zhixing has also recently released its 2025 performance results. On March 26, Xiaoma Zhixing released its Q4 2025 and full-year financial reports. The reports show that in 2025, Xiaoma Zhixing’s total revenue reached RMB 629 million, up 20% year over year. Among them, the Robotaxi (autonomous driving taxi) business, which has attracted the most attention from the public, generated revenue of RMB 116 million over the past year, up 128.6%. In Q4, Robotaxi revenue was RMB 46.6 million, accounting for 40% of the full year, up 160% year over year. Passenger fare revenue grew by more than 500% year over year.

Xiaoma Zhixing reached an operational milestone in Guangzhou and Shenzhen: achieving positive per-car profitability (UE) across city-wide coverage. This means that in first-tier cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Robotaxi revenue can cover all operating costs, including vehicle depreciation, insurance, operations and maintenance, remote assistance, and more, and generate positive cash flow.

Recently, at a media communication meeting hosted by Xiaoma Zhixing, Xiaoma Zhixing co-founder and CFO Wang Haojun, together with multiple media outlets including Caijing Network Technology, engaged in a dialogue. He said, “For a growth-stage company, the most important thing is always Top line (revenue).”

In the financial report recently disclosed, Xiaoma Zhixing has continued to emphasize achieving positive UE across the two cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and Wang Haojun also acknowledged that, for Xiaoma Zhixing, the most important milestone last year was achieving positive UE. “Xiaoma Zhixing does not adopt a low-price strategy. It’s not that Xiaoma Zhixing uses promotions to lure new users by chasing more orders. The final result of a low-price strategy is that there are no stable, daily recurring user orders, which also makes it impossible to ensure that UE can remain relatively stable and achieve sustained growth. Likewise, it can’t guarantee better revenue performance either.”

From the perspective of fleet scale, as of March 25, 2026, Xiaoma Zhixing’s fleet size has expanded from 270 vehicles at the end of 2024 to 1,446 vehicles. Xiaoma Zhixing’s target for this year is to exceed 3,000 vehicles by year-end, grow trip service revenue to more than three times, and expand into 20+ cities. Can this target be achieved? This also tests Xiaoma Zhixing’s capabilities across multiple areas, including technology, fleet scale, and the ecosystem.

Below are selected excerpts from part of the Xiaoma Zhixing communication meeting (with edits):

Question: In this financial report, you achieved profitability for the first time within a single quarter, but mainly it came from your investment in Moore Threads. What’s your view on this single-quarter profitability? Do you have expectations for a timetable for operating profitability?

Wang Haojun: This is just a reflection of a number, and it’s not that important. It is not directly related to our Fundamental (the most core business). At the time, our investment in Moore Threads, in our view, had the most important point of enabling development at a larger scale, which requires linkage across the entire ecosystem—this includes domestically produced chips, all of which need to be considered for deployment. Actually, the investment in Moore Threads was more for strategic reasons at the time, and it just happened to coincide with us achieving single-quarter profitability. We don’t think this is something that is worth making a big fuss about. It has no major connection to our current core business.

In terms of our company’s eventual operating profitability, it is closely related to how many units Robotaxi ultimately reaches at its peak volume. Today, there is a consensus in the industry that Robotaxi will reach around 100,000 units by 2029 or 2030. Many companies should be able to achieve the milestone of operating profitability.

Question: After excluding the stock gains from Moore Threads, Xiaoma Zhixing is still loss-making, and the year-over-year losses are still expanding. Why, when per-car UE has turned positive, are the losses still growing?

Wang Haojun: Per-car UE itself represents revenue growth. The reason for the losses is that last year, for commercialization, there were many necessary investments—for example, the R&D costs for the seventh-generation vehicle. Without R&D on the seventh-generation vehicle, we would not be able to achieve positive UE. In my view, this investment is necessary. We are not saying that once per-car UE turns positive, the company will quickly move toward some so-called path to profitability. We have always emphasized that if per-car UE turns positive, what the company needs to do is grow revenue—and that growth needs to be much faster than the growth in expenditures. That is what constitutes a good model.

Question: Since last year, you have achieved positive UE in two cities—Guangzhou and Shenzhen. What are the difficulties in replicating this model in other cities to achieve positive UE? After scaling up, what changes will there be in costs and revenue?

Wang Haojun: In a new city, the vehicle costs are the same, and operating costs might be slightly lower—such as my staff wages. But there’s another issue as well: whether the per-kilometer passenger fare charged in these cities will stay consistent with those in first-tier cities, or be lower. So you still need a certain scale of network to ensure passenger fare revenue, so that each city can eventually—like first-tier cities—achieve positive UE. The more important significance of Xiaoma Zhixing achieving positive UE in Guangzhou and Shenzhen is that it has established a template. After you’ve created a template, when you expand, you won’t be overly focused on needing every city to first reach positive UE before you expand. Instead, you should focus more on how fast revenue is growing. With revenue growth as the premise, more UE turning positive will naturally follow.

Question: In terms of revenue structure, Robotruck has the highest share, and the growth rate of Robotaxi is also quite fast. The portion of revenue from technology licensing seems relatively steady. What are the priorities and the investment focus for these three lines of business this year?

Wang Haojun: At present, Robotaxi is the most important. In terms of technology, Robotruck is indeed highly linked with Robotaxi. Robotruck and Robotaxi can share 80% of the technology. Our approach is that as Robotaxi advances to a new generation, we apply corresponding technologies to Robotruck’s new generation. We expect Robotruck’s revenue in the second half of the year will continue to grow. For the technology licensing and application portion: in the market last year, we have always been the domain controller supplier for low-speed logistics, and later we also expanded into scenarios such as embodied intelligence, street-sweeping vehicles, and other use cases. Looking at the overall situation this year, the orders are still very strong at the moment, at least ensuring revenue at the same level as last year.

Question: Regarding Xiaoma’s “dual-engine” strategy, you also discussed in the earnings call that overseas markets have more attractive profit margins. Could you elaborate in detail on the overseas operating cost structure, and specifically where the biggest differences compared with domestic operations are?

Wang Haojun: For a growth-stage company, the most important thing is always revenue. As I mentioned earlier, the profit space in overseas market segments is relatively more attractive. But looking at it more in detail, it’s not that every market is like that. In any overseas market, if its labor costs are high and passenger fares are high, then you can consider that its marginal benefits would be high.

Question: Continuing on the overseas topic, I’m also curious: you mentioned earlier that unmanned commercial operations will be carried out quickly in the Middle East. What considerations will go into local pricing? Will your pricing be on par with local taxi pricing, or will it be lower or higher?

Wang Haojun: This is related to regulators’ way of thinking locally. Taking the Middle East as an example, actually the cost to enter is not high, which means I could pursue a low-price strategy. But the problem is: why would I choose a low-price strategy? Or does that market actually need a low-price strategy? Or will they there recognize the service value provided by autonomous driving and be willing to pay a price that is the same as taxis? Regulatory focus differs across different regions. Suddenly adopting a low-price strategy could impact the local taxi business. It’s also possible that local regulators will judge whether they should set a guidance price for the company, similar to taxis. If there are such guidance, we will definitely follow the local regulators’ views.

Question: Guangzhou Toyota and Toyota China, together with Xiaoma Zhixing, are rolling out the seventh-generation vehicle this year. I just saw it’s 1,000 units. If this year’s fleet still continues to grow to 3,000 units, will there be a specific, concrete manifestation of cost reduction brought by economies of scale?

Wang Haojun: Economies of scale will reduce operating costs. If it’s 1,000 vehicles, then that volume is nothing at all from the viewpoint of the OEM. But we also said that even if vehicle cost reduction is not achieved through scale, but through continuous cost optimization of the ADK (autonomous driving kit), then this year Xiaoma Zhixing can reduce ADK costs by 20% compared with last year. This is achieved through our own technology, not simply through economies of scale.

Question: With fleet scale expanding and city expansion increasing, will Xiaoma Zhixing’s gross margin in the Robotaxi business experience relatively large fluctuations? And especially under the co-built fleet model, in the long term, will it dilute the company’s profit margins?

Wang Haojun: Actually, it won’t, because co-building itself brings in two streams of revenue. One is revenue from selling vehicles. After all, the capital expenditures for this vehicle are not borne by Xiaoma Zhixing, so we will receive revenue from selling vehicles. The second is technology licensing fees. Licensing is a business with high gross margins. If you look only at your own Robotaxi, its gross margin is higher than Robotruck’s technology licensing fees. Today, Robotaxi’s total revenue is volatile due to the impact of some project-based factors, and this is also why we are working to increase the portion of recurring revenue. If recurring revenue can be increased, then in the future we can ensure higher-gross-margin business.

Question: Now automakers, ride-hailing platforms, and technology companies are all entering the Robotaxi track. What kind of competitive landscape do you think it will form in the future? Who will be Xiaoma’s biggest competitor, and what will be Xiaoma’s moat?

Wang Haojun: The biggest competitor in the autonomous driving industry is definitely itself. What we care about most is still pushing the whole industry forward. Although we judge that a turning point has come, people will still have more questions in their minds—whether the turning point really has arrived. How exactly should revenue be achieved in the end? For now, in this industry, we need to push the industry forward. So I’m more concerned about how we can do it faster. For many players entering autonomous driving—whether for the industry or for the ecosystem—everything they do is good. Once more players come in, some costs can continue to fall. The only question is: ultimately, how many of these new players will actually succeed? Today, the safety requirements for L4 are much higher than for L2+. That means that only if you can build such a technology stack to ensure extremely high safety while also covering overall operational efficiency—can you do it. The complexity is far higher than L2+. My prediction is that companies that can achieve L4 will definitely be much fewer than companies that can achieve L2+. If you算 it this way, then in the end there will be only a few players, but their number will be far less than that of the L2+ companies.