Chinese autonomous-driving company Momenta Global plans to bring its robotaxi service to Dubai and additional European cities. By the end of next year, it aims to deploy thousands of vehicles, Shuo Xie, head of its robotaxi business, told Reuters. Momenta is testing vehicles in five Chinese cities, Munich and Abu Dhabi. It says more than 100 vehicles have been deployed in three countries.
Expansion Plans
Momenta plans to deploy robotaxis in Dubai next year and is talking with a “few” European cities about expanding further, Xie said. Japan is also a priority, she said on Tuesday. Those plans would take the company beyond its current tests in China, Munich and Abu Dhabi.
“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,” Xie said in an online interview. The company’s target is a fleet in the hundreds at the end of 2026, rising to several thousand by the end of 2027.
A former Microsoft researcher founded Momenta, which Mercedes-Benz backs. Toyota and BYD are among its partners. The company runs two main businesses: advanced driver-assistance software, which it sells to automakers, and robotaxis, which remain at an early stage.
Momenta competes with Alphabet’s Waymo and China’s Pony.ai, among others. It is expanding its robotaxi operations while developing the software and hardware needed for autonomous driving.
Investment and Technology
Momenta raised around $751 million in an initial public offering in Hong Kong in July. Its shares have fallen some 45% from the IPO price, hit in part by caution about the outlook for Hong Kong-listed AI shares. The company remains unprofitable as it spends heavily on research and development.
The company is working with chipmaker XHeart to produce chips specifically designed for Momenta’s autonomous-driving software. Xie said those chips should cost “significantly lower” than equivalent computing power from Nvidia. XHeart is developing 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,” Xie said. Her remarks link the company’s expansion plans to its effort to develop computing hardware tailored to its software.
Robotaxis remain an early-stage business for Momenta. Still, the company is targeting several thousand vehicles by the end of next year. It has deployed more than 100 vehicles across three countries, while testing continues in five Chinese cities, Munich and Abu Dhabi.
Momenta’s stated next steps include Dubai, additional European cities and Japan. Xie said the company is discussing expansion with a “few” European cities, but didn’t identify them. The article gives no further details about locations, deployment schedules or planned fleet sizes in those markets.