(Yicai) Dec. 12 -- GAC Aion, the electric vehicle brand of Chinese automotive giant GAC Group, has joined hands with Chinese autonomous driving technology provider Pony.ai to co-develop a commercially-viable, mass-produced robotaxi.

The collaboration aims to deliver at least 1,000 robotaxis based on GAC Aion's EV models and equipped with Pony.ai's seventh-generation self-driving solutions, Pony.ai announced yesterday. The first batch of robotaxis will be deployed in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area next year.

The pair have already started researching and developing the autonomous driving package and chassis redundancy design of the robotaxi model, Pony.ai noted.

Guangzhou-based Pony.ai and GAC have been working together since 2018. They have collaborated on several car models with Level-4 autonomous driving capabilities for road testing. In October, GAC's subsidiary GAC Capital invested USD27 million in Pony.ai to support the commercialization of robotaxis.

Pony.ai went public in New York on Nov. 27, but its shares [NASDAQ: PONY] plunged 7.7 percent on their first day of trading after soaring by more than 21 percent at one point in the morning session. They fell 4.1 percent to USD14.14 yesterday.

The company secured USD299 million in its initial public offering. It will use 40 percent of the proceeds to promote the commercialization of robotaxis and robotrucks, 40 percent for autonomous driving technology research and development, and 20 percent for general corporate purposes.

Since its establishment in 2016, Pony.ai has accumulated nearly 40 million kilometers of autonomous driving road tests. It has robotaxi operation qualifications in China's four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen -- and has cooperated with many automakers, including China's GAC and BAIC Motor and Japan's Toyota Motor.

GAC Aion's sales fell 29 percent to 307,201 units in the first 11 months of the year from a year earlier, according to the latest data released by GAC.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione