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Image source: WeRide official Weibo

Following the news that it was preparing to go public in the United States with a valuation of nearly US$5 billion, foreign media reported that WeRide has obtained a license from the State of California to test driverless cars and is allowed to carry passengers in San Jose and its surrounding areas.

The three-year license covers 12 vehicles and allows WeRide to carry passengers in both driverless and driverless test vehicles.

but,According to further verification by Titanium Media App with WeRide, this license only allows WeRide's Robotaxi to provide test rides to non-WeRide employees, and it has not yet been opened to the public.

Obtained autonomous driving licenses in four countries

Licensing is a key step for autonomous driving companies to go commercial.

Founded in 2017 and with its global headquarters in Guangzhou, WeRide is a developer of automotive autonomous driving systems.

At the beginning of its establishment, WeRide mainly focused on self-driving taxis (Robotaxi), and later expanded to self-driving minibuses (Robobus), self-driving freight trucks (Robovan), self-driving sanitation vehicles (Robosweeper) and advanced intelligent driving (Advanced Driving Solution), etc.

Han Xu, founder and CEO of WeRide, once explained the logic between the products to Titanium Media App. Whether it is a minibus, logistics vehicle or sanitation vehicle, WeRide is currently focusing on autonomous driving in the city. It is just based on unmanned driving technology in urban scenarios. Even if the products launched have different forms and application scenarios, the differences in their technology stacks are very small.

Relying on these autonomous driving technologies and products, WeRide has currently obtained autonomous driving licenses in China, the United States, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.

In China, in June this year, WeRide officially obtained the notice for the commercial pilot of highway travel services in Beijing's Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone, and its autonomous driving travel service vehicles were approved to carry out commercial pilot projects of autonomous driving travel services in specific areas of Beijing.

WeRide has been testing autonomous vehicles without passengers on public roads in San Jose, U.S., since 2021. According to DMV data, WeRide's vehicles drove 42,391 miles of autonomous driving in California in 2023.

Last year, WeRide obtained autonomous driving licenses in the UAE and Singapore.

First, in July, WeRide obtained the first autonomous driving road license approved and granted by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, which allows it to conduct road testing and operations of various types of autonomous driving vehicles on all public roads in the UAE.

Immediately afterwards in November, WeRide received a notice from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore, obtaining the Milestone 1 Level 1 public road test license for driverless vehicles and the T1 Assessment Level 1 special area public path test license for driverless vehicles. Its self-driving minibuses can be tested on a wider range of public roads in Singapore, covering important areas such as One-North Science Park and the National University of Singapore.

Sprinting for IPO, Robotaxi is still the focus

Before obtaining the California passenger test, WeRide had already formally submitted its listing application documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The prospectus clearly stated that it would continue to increase investment in autonomous driving technology testing, trials and commercialization, especially focusing on the Robotaxi project, and planned to start commercial production this year and next year to be fully prepared for large-scale market applications.

Although WeRide is expected to be the first to achieve breakthroughs in licensing and listing progress, its future development path is still full of challenges and uncertainties.

Since its establishment in 2017, WeRide has completed 10 rounds of financing. Investors include GAC, NVIDIA, Bosch, IDG Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Cornerstone Capital, etc., with a total financing of over US$1 billion (approximately RMB 7.2 billion). After completing the last round of D+ financing in 2022, its valuation reached US$5 billion.

Looking through WeRide's prospectus, from 2021 to the first half of 2024, WeRide's revenue was 138 million yuan, 528 million yuan, 400 million yuan and 150 million yuan respectively.

From the revenue structure, WeRide's current revenue mainly comes from two parts: one is product revenue, including the sales of L4 autonomous driving vehicles and related sensor kits; the other is service revenue, covering L4 autonomous driving and ADAS (advanced driver assistance system) services.

Among them, from 2021 to 2023, WeRide's product revenue was RMB 102 million, RMB 338 million, and RMB 54 million respectively; service revenue was RMB 37 million, RMB 190 million, and RMB 348 million respectively.

Huge investments and long R&D cycles have made losses a reality that autonomous driving companies must face. From 2021 to the first half of 2024, WeRide's net losses were 1.0073 billion yuan, 1.2985 billion yuan, 1.9491 billion yuan, and 882 million yuan, respectively, with a cumulative loss of more than 5.1 billion yuan in three and a half years.

Among them, high R&D expenses are the main reason for the loss. The prospectus shows that from 2021 to the first half of 2024, WeRide's R&D expenses were 443.2 million yuan, 758.6 million yuan, 1.0584 billion yuan, and 517.2 million yuan, respectively, totaling 2.778 billion yuan in three and a half years, accounting for 54% of the loss.

However, as of the end of 2023, WeRide still has approximately RMB 4.2 billion in cash, time deposits and wealth management investments.

Faced with high R&D costs and future uncertainties, autonomous driving companies are well aware of the importance of financing. However, referring to the performance of autonomous driving companies listed on the US and Hong Kong stock markets, it also sounded a warning bell for WeRide, which is about to go public.

For example, the share price of Zhixing Technology, the "first autonomous driving stock in Hong Kong stocks", has fallen sharply from its peak of HK$115.6 per share to the current HK$22 per share. RoboSense, a laser radar company also listed on the Hong Kong stock market, has not been spared, with its share price plummeting from its peak of HK$137.5 per share to HK$16.46 per share.

In the U.S. stock market, TuSimple, the first autonomous driving stock, has been delisted, and the market value of laser radar company Hesai Technology has shrunk from US$3 billion before its listing to US$528 million.

For WeRide, going public in the United States may just be the beginning of a world of both opportunities and challenges.(This article was first published on Titanium Media App. Author: Han Jingxian. Editor: Zhang Min)