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On March 4, Pony Zhixing announced the establishment of a joint venture with South Korean technology company GemVaxLink, which will be established in Seoul this year. Through the joint venture, Pony Zhixing and GemVaxLink will jointly develop autonomous driving technology and applications.

It is understood that both parties will deeply integrate their respective resources and technological advantages to create leading autonomous travel technology and services for the Korean market. According to the plan, the two sides will deploy an autonomous driving service fleet in Seoul in advance to provide safe and comfortable taxi service for the public, and further explore the landing and expansion of more autonomous driving products in South Korea on this basis.

In August last year, Ma Zhixing and Toyota Motor (China) Investment Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "Toyota China"), GAC Toyota Motor Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as "GAC Toyota") held a signing ceremony, and the three parties announced the joint establishment of a joint venture company with an investment of more than RMB 1 billion yuan, so as to promote the mass production of L4 automatic driving pre-assembly; In October of the same year, Xiaoma Zhixing joined the smart automobile industry cluster (SAVI) built by Abu Dhabi, and then announced that it had obtained a US $100 million investment from Saudi Arabia's New Future City (NEOM), and planned to establish an autonomous driving production manufacturing and R & D center in Saudi Arabia to carry out autonomous driving R & D and manufacturing for the Middle East and North Africa region.

The joint venture between Pony Zhixing and GemVaxLink will further expand its presence in South Korea's autonomous driving field.

According to the data, Xiaoma Zhixing was established in Silicon Valley of the United States at the end of 2016. It is one of the representatives of domestic self-driving automobile enterprises. It was co-founded by Peng Jun and Lou Tiancheng and headquartered in Guangzhou. According to the information of Sky Eye, Xiaoma Zhixing has obtained 8 rounds of financing process at present, with the total financing amount exceeding USD 1.1 billion. The investors include Sequoia Capital, IDG Capital, Chenxing Capital, Junlian Capital, Kaiming Investment, Toyota, FAW Group, etc. Among them, on March 7,2022, Xiaoma Zhixing completed its first Series D financing with a valuation of US $8.5 billion, becoming the company with the highest valuation among China's autonomous driving start-ups. Former CFO Lawrence Stein also said: "The company's financial position is very strong, providing a solid foundation for the development of Pony Zhixing in the next few years until we start the large-scale commercialization process. "

However, the ideal is very plump reality is very skinny. Or affected by the adjustment of business end and the loss of core personnel, Ma Zhixing IPO plan has been stranded. As early as two years ago, Xiao Ma Zhixing hoped to list at a valuation of $12 billion through SPAC. On August 12,2021, people familiar with the matter revealed that Xiao Ma Zhixing postponed the plan to list in the United States through SPAC, but still hoped to list in the United States.

Autonomous driving is a relatively high-cost project, and Han Xu, CEO of Wenyuan Zhixing, an autonomous driving company, has said bluntly that the company has maintained a spending rate of $100 million a year. It is worth mentioning that since its establishment in 2016, Xiaoma Zhixing has successively promoted the R & D layout and fleet operation of autonomous driving in China, the United States, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and South Korea. In cooperation with GemVaxLink, the two sides will work together to explore the commercial path of autonomous driving in the Korean market.

According to the official website information, most of the cars sold in South Korea at present are L1-L2 auxiliary driving functions. Compared with the development level of international L4 technology, South Korea L4 driverless application has not been spread on a large scale. Research data from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information show that the Korean autonomous driving solution market will increase from about 7.687 billion yuan (1.44 trillion won) in 2024 to about 13.986 billion yuan (2.620 trillion won) in 2028, with an annual compound growth rate of 16.2%.

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