On December 11th, Xiaoma Zhixing and GAC Aion reached a strategic cooperation on Robotaxi. The two sides will cooperate to create a Robotaxi large-scale production model with commercial operation competitiveness, and promote the commercialization of fully unmanned Robotaxi production. According to the agreement, both parties will jointly develop a fully redundant front loading mass-produced Robotaxi vehicle platform based on the software and hardware system solutions of Aion Global and Xiaoma Zhixing's seventh generation autonomous driving.
At present, both sides have launched a technological battle around the research and development of autonomous driving vehicle grade kits, vehicle production, chassis redundancy safety design, and other aspects. They plan to launch at least 1000 units of the Aion Robotaxi model, with the first batch to be completed by 2025 and landing in the Greater Bay Area, covering more regions and countries in the future.
Peng Jun, co-founder and CEO of Xiaoma Zhixing, stated that cooperation with GAC Aion is an important layout for Xiaoma Zhixing to continue its large-scale production and commercialization strategy of Robotaxi. Feng Xingya, General Manager of GAC Group, stated that the Aion brand is committed to creating "advanced, trendy, and high-quality" intelligent new energy vehicle products. Robotaxi integrates a new model of intelligent vehicles and smart travel, providing a wide range of application scenarios for automotive intelligence.
Since the beginning of this year, Xiaoma Zhixing has continuously strengthened its cooperation with multiple car companies such as Toyota, GAC, and BAIC, covering key areas such as forward research and development of vehicle models, production line construction, road testing, and announcement certification, promoting the large-scale development of Robotaxi production. At the same time, Xiaoma Zhixing is promoting the production and operation of Robotaxi vehicle platforms with a scale of thousands or more, aiming to achieve a positive gross profit margin for Robotaxi bicycle operations when reaching a scale of thousands of vehicles.
As early as 2018, Xiaoma Zhixing and Guangzhou Automobile Group began to work together in the fields of autonomous vehicles and technology, capital, etc. Xiaoma Zhixing and GAC Ai'an jointly built the AION LX L4 Robotaxi model with the third generation auto drive system of Xiaoma Zhixing in 2019, and carried out open road testing. In addition, the AION LX L4 robotaxi vehicle platform equipped with the sixth generation auto drive system of Xiaoma Zhixing has been included in the second batch of models of Guangzhou Intelligent Connected Vehicles in 2022, and provides automatic driving travel services to the public. In October 2024, GAC Capital invested $27 million (approximately RMB 191 million) in Xiaoma Zhixing to jointly promote the commercial operation of Robotaxi. Meanwhile, prior to the listing of Xiaoma Zhixing, multiple investors including GAC Group subscribed to approximately $153.4 million worth of Class A common stock through strategic targeted issuance.
Xiaoma Zhixing was officially listed on NASDAQ on November 27, 2024, with an average daily order volume of over 15 orders per fully unmanned Robotaxi in the first half of the year. Industry data shows that global Roboaxi services are expected to be commercialized around 2026, with China expected to become the world's largest Robotaxi service market, with a market size expected to reach $200 million by 2025 and $39 billion by 2030, accounting for over half of the global Robotaxi service market share.