Mercedes-backed Momenta targets Dubai and Europe for robotaxi expansion

By Reuters News

By Qiaoyi Li and David Dolan

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Chinese autonomous-driving company Momenta Global 6880.HK aims to have thousands of robotaxis on the road next year as it looks to expand to Dubai and more cities in Europe, the head of its robotaxi business told Reuters.

Founded by a former Microsoft researcher and backed by Mercedes-Benz MBGn.DE, Momenta counts Toyota 7203.T, and BYD among its partners.

It has two main businesses: advanced driver-assistance software, which it sells to automakers, and robotaxis, which are still in an early stage with more than 100 vehicles deployed in three countries.

The company is testing its robotaxis in five Chinese cities, as well as in Munich and Abu Dhabi.

Momenta has been in talks with a "few" European cities for further expansion and plans to deploy vehicles in Dubai next year, Shuo Xie, the head of its robotaxi business, said on Tuesday, adding that Japan was also a priority.

"The size of our robotaxi fleet will be in the ... hundreds at the end of this year and then it will be several thousand at the end of next year," she said in an online interview.

Momenta competes with Alphabet’s GOOGL.O Waymo and China’s Pony.ai PONY.O, among others, in robotaxis.

In July the company raised around $751 million in an initial public offering in Hong Kong.

But its shares have fallen some 45% from the IPO price, hit in part by caution about the outlook for Hong Kong-listed AI shares. Momenta also remains unprofitable as it spends heavily on research and development.

It has been working with chip company XHeart to produce chips designed specifically for its autonomous-driving software.

The cost of such chips should be "significantly lower" than those of equivalent computing power from Nvidia, Xie said.

XHeart is now working on a next-generation chip, the X9, she added.

"In a couple of years the robotaxis that I am going to deploy around the world, hopefully a lot of them will be hosted on that X9 chip."

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