Pony.ai Inc., a California autonomous vehicle company, announced it will soon begin testing its vehicles in Tucson.
In an emailed announcement, Pony said these initial tests will have drivers behind the wheel and the company will base its operations out of Pima Community College’s Automotive Technology & Innovation Center on its downtown campus.
The company said lead up activity will start Sept. 22, with initial testing to follow. Pony has two Hyundai Kona electric vehicles on site, but the company did not specify how many employees it has in Tucson now or how many it intends to hire in the future.
Tucson is already home to TuSimple, an autonomous trucking company, but Pony’s testing will be the first passenger AV program in southern Arizona.
“Tucson is quickly becoming a leading city for tech startups and smart city technology, and Pony.ai is excited to expand our operations there," Pony.ai co-founder and CEO James Peng said in a statement.
Peng and Tiancheng Lou co-founded Pony in 2016 after working as developers for Beijing-based Baidu in California. The company was founded in Fremont, California and has significant operations in China.
Pony was one of the first companies to gain a driverless taxi permit in China earlier this year, according to TechCrunch.
Pony gained permission to test fully autonomous vehicles in California last year, but the company’s permit was suspended just a few months later.
Pony earned its California AV testing permit in May 2021, but a single-vehicle crash on Oct. 28, 2021 led the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to suspend Pony’s permit, which was the first time it suspended a permit, according to Reuters.
There are currently nine companies testing AVs in Arizona, according to the Department of Transportation, most of which is happening in Maricopa County.
Waymo is currently operating driverless taxis in Phoenix and parts of the East Valley, Cruise plans to launch its own driverless taxis by the end of the year and Embark Trucks has been running autonomous truck testing in Arizona since last year.
