Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nasdaq-listed Chinese autonomous driving company WeRide has said it hopes to become profitable within five years but warned that uncertainty over international government regulation and commercial partnerships make the timing \u201cdifficult to predict\u201d.Tony Han, WeRide founder and chief executive, said autonomous driving required huge investment and generating returns would be a \u201clong process\u201d. The Nvidia-backed company has reported higher losses in each of the past three years.\u201cWhat I want in the next five years is that first of all\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009this company can become profitable,\u201d Han told the Financial Times. \u201cI think from a technology perspective it will definitely support this within five years, but there are more commercial and policy considerations.\u201dHan\u2019s comments highlight the difficulty of monetising driverless vehicle technology. Robotaxi businesses operated by the sector\u2019s leading companies \u2014 including Chinese internet search group Baidu and local rival Pony.ai, as well as Google\u2019s Waymo in the US \u2014 have yet to report profits, said analysts.Tony Han co-founded WeRide in 2017 \u00a9 Patrick T Fallon\/BloombergWeRide, based in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, produces technology for a range of semi-autonomous vehicles, including sleek black taxis and curved-glass buses, as well as vans and road sweepers. In October, it raised $441.mn through an initial public offering on New York\u2019s Nasdaq exchange and a private placement.The company has launched limited robo-bus services in China, France, Singapore and Switzerland and is running trials of self-driving taxis in Chinese cities while partnering with Uber to offer robotaxis in Abu Dhabi. Han said he hoped to expand in other European markets, including Spain and Germany.When WeRide becomes profitable will depend on the pace at which governments regulate driverless vehicles, public openness to the technology and how quickly partners can integrate autonomous systems, he said.WeRide said in its IPO prospectus that its losses grew to Rmb1.9bn ($260mn) in 2023, though it said they were smaller than any listed company providing comparable self-driving technology. Annual results released this month showed losses reached Rmb2.5bn in 2024.Lu Daokuan, an analyst at S&P Global Mobility, said high costs for software, maintenance and research were likely to prevent Chinese robotaxi groups achieving profitability until at least 2028.He said purpose-built robotaxis were cheaper to produce and could enjoy greater economies of scale compared with self-driving taxis adapted from traditional cars. WeRide\u2019s latest model is a purpose-built collaboration with Chinese carmaker Geely.\u201cCompanies are also benefiting from cost reduction throughout the entire supply chain, from lidars to chips,\u201d said Lu. \u201c[But] full-scale commercialisation is only possible\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009when robotaxis can perform as well as human drivers on the road.\u201dIn February, US chip giant Nvidia, a pre-IPO backer of WeRide, revealed it held a 0.68 per cent stake in the company. WeRide uses Nvidia\u2019s graphics processors and software.The company\u2019s so-called level-four autonomous buses and taxis are monitored remotely, with screens showing passengers the vehicle\u2019s map of its surroundings and its planned route. WeRide\u2019s latest taxis still have a conventional minivan interior, but many of its buses have no driver\u2019s booths or steering wheels.Many of the company\u2019s taxis, including those in Abu Dhabi and on certain roads in China, currently operate with a safety driver on board.The company this month launched a commercial project to run its driverless buses on a relatively quiet public road in Valence, France. It also runs commercial buses with a safety driver onboard at Zurich\u2019s airport.The projects were generally paid for by local governments or companies they own, said Han, who was previously a professor at the University of Missouri and chief scientist at Baidu\u2019s driverless cars unit.He said operating costs for autonomous driving could eventually fall low enough to allow free public transport for all. \u201cIn today\u2019s world, if you go to a park and drink the water, you don\u2019t have to pay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nasdaq-listed Chinese autonomous driving company WeRide has said it hopes to become profitable within five years but warned that uncertainty over international government regulation and commercial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-258458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}