Autopilot company Pony.ai has downsized multiple departments, and several US research executives have resigned

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Text | Angie Li

Editor | Yang Xuan

Under the cold winter of the industry, Pony.ai, the leading autonomous driving company, ushered in a round of business downsizing and personnel shocks.

36氪 learned exclusively from people familiar with the matter that Pony.ai’s internal business adjustment is underway: the Infrastructure & Data department has been downsized, and the personnel optimization ratio has reached 50%. Among them, the Shanghai Data Department, which is affiliated to this department, has been disbanded.

At the same time, the company experienced high-level personnel turmoil: Kevin, the head of the infrastructure and data department at the California R&D center, had previously left. In addition, this adjustment also involves the map department, and Feng Yi, the map director who is also located in Meiyan, has also resigned.

A Pony.ai employee guessed that the adjusted and optimized department could not generate revenue internally, and at the same time, many functions of the system had been developed, and the tool platform was sufficient. “Without new business expansion, tool maintenance doesn’t require as many people.”

According to multiple sources, the departments such as Infrastructure & Data and Maps are the departments that Xiaoma will focus on adjusting this time, but some internal employees revealed that the scope of future business adjustments may be expanded.

It is reported that the Infrastructure & Data department is an important but not a core department at this stage. It mainly provides tools and services for the development of autonomous driving systems, such as simulation platforms, data mining platforms, and data annotation systems. Wait. The team is distributed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with a scale of less than 100 people.

A Pony.ai employee revealed to 36Kr that the department was established in 2019. Initially, the company hoped that the department could achieve some revenue by providing services both internally and externally, but this vision was not realized. Since the beginning of this year, most of the work of this department has been to optimize the original tool structure, and rarely touch new projects.

Although there is no more information that Pony.ai will make a large-scale business adjustment, the self-driving star company is facing a difficult commercialization of the technology.

Founded in 2016, Pony.ai is a world-renowned autonomous driving startup. It was co-founded by Peng Jun, the former chief architect of Baidu North America R&D, and Lou Tiancheng (the first person in programming in China), the former CEO. , the latter as CTO.

With its strong technical strength, Pony.ai has become the most valuable autonomous driving company in China (up to US$8.5 billion), and investment institutions such as Sequoia Capital, IDG Capital, Morningside Capital, Legend Capital, Toyota, and FAW Group have successively Take a bet, and the current financing amount exceeds 1.1 billion US dollars.

Pony.ai used to be a typical Robotaxi (autonomous taxi) route player in the industry, trying to replace human driving with one-step autonomous driving technology. Competing with it are the assisted driving players represented by Tesla, etc. The system starts from assisted human driving and gradually evolves iteratively.

Two years ago, the two routes were more or less able to compete with each other. But now, with Tesla’s global annual sales of millions, the industry has changed. The technical route that completely replaces human driving has not found the most suitable commercial landing model, and it is difficult to impress investors. The general pessimism in the industry is that autonomous driving may not come in 5 or 10 years.

Foreign counterparts are precarious. Previously, Argo AI, an autonomous driving company with a total financing amount of up to 3.6 billion US dollars and backed by the two major auto giants Ford and Volkswagen, has declared bankruptcy. Another company, Aurora, is saving expenses through layoffs, executive pay cuts, asset sales, and reduced benefits, and even considers selling the company to cash-rich tech giants such as Apple and Microsoft.

Pony.ai was also placed on the stove. Judging from the delivery information of the first round of D-round financing announced by Pony.ai in March this year, the company still has nearly 1 billion US dollars in cash flow. However, internal employees said that the company held an all-staff meeting at the beginning of the year. At the meeting, CEO Peng Jun said that the company’s cash flow could be maintained for more than two years.

“Two years is actually quite a long time. If no new financing comes in this year, it may only last for more than a year from next year. The company needs to find a healthy cash flow to survive.” The Pony.ai employee said.

Based on pessimistic expectations, Pony.ai is making some business adjustments.

On November 1st, the CEO of Pony.ai sent a letter to all employees, which included a lot of exchanges between Chinese and American companies in terms of business cooperation and technical structure. Even in China, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou only focus on their own business. “I feel that the business between China and the United States should be cut.” A Pony.ai employee said.

It is understood that the team of Pony.ai’s US R&D center has been shrinking: in addition to the above-mentioned leaders of infrastructure and maps, Pony.ai’s perception technology manager Shuyang Cheng, personal expert Liu Yiming and other directors have all left, and most of these people are at L8 level. level, basically reporting directly to the founder. Previously, there were more than 100 people in the US R&D center, but in the past year, half of the team has gone.

In May this year, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) had revoked Pony.ai’s autonomous driving test license. This also further restricts the development of Pony.ai’s vehicle testing and other businesses in California, USA.

In addition, the self-driving truck company Tucson, which has been listed by industry friends, will be investigated by the SEC for a long time in the future, which also makes Ma Zhixing, which has business in China and the United States, quite worried, and is determined to cut business in China and the United States. This means that, whether proactively or passively, Pony.ai’s US business may shrink further.

In China, Pony.ai also maintains the company’s operations by increasing revenue and reducing expenditure. Some employees can clearly feel that the company’s holiday benefits and types of snacks are decreasing, and the semi-annual bonus incentives have also been discounted.

More importantly, Pony.ai is looking for businesses other than Robotaxi that can be implemented commercially. According to 36 Krypton, since this year, Pony.ai has been actively in contact with some car companies to seek the possibility of transforming into an assisted driving supplier.

It’s a matter of life and death for Pony.ai. It takes 2-3 years for each car of a car company to go from product planning, R&D and production to mass production and delivery. Even if Pony.ai can break through the defense line of the car company’s supply chain, it will take 2-3 years to truly landing. What’s more, becoming a car company’s intelligent driving Tier 1 is already a Red Sea market where everyone is breaking out.

If Pony.ai can break through the past and become an assisted driving supplier for car companies, the company will usher in an important turning point. However, so far, the company has not officially announced the cooperation case.

In addition, Pony.ai has also shifted some of its focus to the Robotruck, an autonomous truck, to provide unmanned heavy-duty truck services. On November 1st, Pony.ai announced the cooperation with Sinotrans and Sany Group, established a tripartite strategic alliance, established the “technology + vehicle + scene” golden triangle of smart logistics, and delivered the first batch of 30 smart heavy trucks. This is also expected to bring some revenue to Pony.ai.

The bright resume of the founder, the high potential of the business model, and the mutual attraction between talents were once one of the signs that Pony.ai became the industry leader. In the eyes of an engineer, Pony.ai is still a respectable company. But the cruelty of business is making some people leave actively or passively.

At a time of business adjustment and personnel turmoil, Pony.ai and its team may need to answer a new question: Who am I? Where are you going?

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