Cofounder, Pony.ai
Dr. James Peng, Pony.ai - Autonomous Vehicles: Present, Challenges & Future @Nexus Luxembourg 2025
Dr. James Peng, Co-founder and CEO of Pony.ai, joins Nexus Luxembourg 2025 for a fireside chat on the current state and future ...
About James Peng
James Peng, cofounder and CEO of Pony.ai, discussed the company's progress and challenges in scaling robotaxis in a July 2026 interview. He stated that autonomous driving has taken a decade to commercialize and that while the industry has moved from "zero to one" and "one to five," significant hurdles remain from "five to 10" and "10 to 100." Peng said data is important but "not everything," comparing it to practice sets in learning math. He described his main role as managing the complexity of the system—hardware, software, safety, regulation, user acceptance, and cost reduction—and identifying weak links to improve. At the MOVE 2026 conference in June, Peng said he sees more similarities than differences in how regulators across cities approach robotaxis, with common concerns around safety, impact on existing mobility systems, and data security. He noted that Europe, with over 500 million people, is a strategic focus for Pony.ai, though expansion there will be gradual. Peng also said he does not view AI as a "secret weapon" but as a general tool for high-tech development.
Transcript (14 segments)
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Host0:05
Now we have a one-on-one fireside chat with Dr. James Peng, the co-founder and CEO of Pony AI. Pony AI is a global autonomous driving technology company pursuing an ambitious vision for autonomous mobility and the future ahead. In this fireside chat, we'll have a spotlight on the progress, current challenges, and also looking ahead to what's next. Please help me welcome Dr. James Peng to the stage. Thank you so much for joining us.
So, Pony AI is a global company, but it's headquartered here in Luxembourg. So, could you actually tell us a little bit more about the mission you set out for and where does the company stand today?
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James Peng1:14
Yes, I'm James Peng. I'm the founder and CEO of Pony AI. Pony AI actually was founded in 2016 in Silicon Valley, and after the founding we quickly expanded into China as well. So currently, we were founded actually with a mission and the idea that using AI algorithms can make our mobility systems much more efficient, much safer. And with that goal we have built the company, and we actually currently have expanded into global as well. Of course, in Europe, Luxembourg is our first office, and hopefully using this as a launch pad for our European expansion.
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Host2:02
That's amazing. I love that. Luxembourg is a launch pad for global expansion. Wow. So, how do you expect advances in generative AI or edge computing to actually impact the AV experience?
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James Peng2:15
It has actually improved the development speed. The key challenge of autonomous driving is not just because it's a perception problem or a planning problem. The key is that we're interacting with other vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists. So how do we ensure safety by having the best interaction with others and having enough buffers to ensure safety? So all those simulations, all those training has benefited enormously from the generative AI, from the large model and the end-to-end training.
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Host2:55
Wow, that's really cool. And actually, you know, usually as you may have heard when we talk about autonomy, a lot of us bring up the ethical dilemma of self-driving cars. So that kind of makes me wonder where does Pony AI stand on that and what are some of the challenges which an autonomous vehicle company faces in this respect?
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James Peng3:14
Yes, I think the dilemma you were referring to is in the extreme cases: if you hit one person or five persons, and all those dilemmas. But I think I would like to answer this in a different way, because the autonomous driving systems are equipped with 360-degree sensor coverage and also typically equipped with redundancy systems. So I think it should have the capability to avoid being in that situation because it can detect the situations that lead to that dilemma much in advance. So I would say that if the autonomous driving system becomes ubiquitous everywhere, our mobility systems should be much safer. In fact, even our currently deployed fully driverless systems, our data has already proven that it is a magnitude safer than a typical human driver. So it has already been 10 times safer. I think with the advance of more algorithms, it can be even much safer.
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Host4:35
Wow, that's amazing. And that gives us a lot of comfort as well, but it's also a very bright and uplifting take on the future of driverless cars. I for one am definitely looking forward to that. And kind of in this respect, Pony AI partnered with Emile Weber here in Luxembourg, which is amazing. So how will Pony AI's partnership integrate autonomous vehicles into Luxembourg's transportation network and what will that kind of look like in the future?
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James Peng5:01
Yes, as we are expanding into the global market, you can think of the mobility industry as a highly regulated industry. So whenever we go into a new market, using Luxembourg as an example, we first need to have a great partnership with the public sector, with the government. And actually we were very fortunate to get connected to Luxembourg with a very open-minded government, with the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Transport and all the other agencies. We were actually very fortunate to very quickly get the approval and get licenses. The other is of course a local player, in this case Emile Weber, as one of the largest mobility providers in the country. We were able to find a great partnership. So I think with this public-private collaboration, we'll quickly — well, not quick, probably not that fast enough — but we were already, since we signed the deal last year, we already have the vehicles on the ground currently in some suburbs first to ensure safety, ensure all the infrastructure is in place. Hopefully very soon we'll be able to provide just like a supplement to existing taxi services and as a great service to provide mobility needs to the citizens of Luxembourg to enjoy.
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Host6:42
Wow, that's amazing. Thank you so much. And here at Nexus, we love to kind of see what's happening right now in the present, but also we love to look ahead and see what's going to happen maybe 25 years from now in 2050. So my final question to you is: what is your vision for Pony AI and also the broader autonomous vehicle industry in the upcoming five to 10 years?
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James Peng7:08
I think in the last decade, the whole industry is focused on technology development. So you can think of that as the stage from zero to one. We have now proven that autonomous driving is safe, comfortable, and efficient. I think for the next five to 10 years, it's all about scale. So how do we actually massively scale a proven safe technology for society? So you can think of currently we solved the problem with one, now we are adding zeros behind it to make it thousands, tens of thousands, and millions. So I think that's the goal. And of course, we would really hope that we can work with Luxembourg as a place for us to scale up, either as a manufacturing facility or at least as an example to showcase the great technology, safe and great.
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Host8:13
That's amazing. Thank you so much. So scale, scale, and scale. Thank you so much, Dr. Peng, for this amazing fireside chat.
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James Peng8:21
Thanks for having us.
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Host8:22
A pleasure, and I'm looking forward to the future of our autonomous mobility. Can we give him a huge round of applause? Thank you so much.