Horizon Reaches Cooperation With Hello to Accelerate Robotaxi Commercialization

On September 11, at the 2025 Inclusion · Bund Conference, Horizon Robotics and Hello signed a strategic cooperation agreement. Based on the operating scenarios and needs of Robotaxi, both parties will leverage their respective technological advantages to jointly develop intelligent driving technology that is extremely low-cost, high-safety, high-reliability, and high-availability, aiming to achieve commercial success for Robotaxi and jointly create an industry benchmark product. This collaboration is a key move in Horizon's forward-looking strategic layout, marking the full empowerment of Horizon's intelligent driving technology platform in all scenarios from L2 to L4.

Horizon Signs Strategic Cooperation Agreement with Hello Enterprise Representatives

"Deep Collaboration between 'Technology Foundation + Operators' to Set a New Benchmark for Robotaxi Commercialization"

The current acceleration from L2 to L4 in intelligent driving has become an industry consensus. Robotaxi is one of the important applications and commercialization scenarios for L4 level autonomous driving, with broad market prospects and development potential. According to a UBS report, it is predicted that by the late 2030s, the potential size of the Robotaxi service market in China will reach $183 billion, with approximately 4 million Robotaxis operating nationwide by then.

According to the agreement, the two parties will collaborate on L4 intelligent driving full-stack solutions and technologies, including L4 autonomous driving software algorithms, automotive-grade domain controllers, and supporting hardware, to complete end-to-end system integration and mass production validation. This solution will serve as the core software and hardware system for the Hello Robotaxi fleet. Both parties will jointly ensure the high quality and high standards of the technical solution, striving to create a safe, reliable, intelligent, and convenient future mobility service, providing users with a technologically advanced new experience in autonomous driving travel.

As a leading enterprise in China's intelligent driving technology, Horizon has built a technical foundation that adapts to the landing needs of Robotaxi through its accumulation of full-stack technology and mass production experience. In terms of computing power, the Journey 6P can provide a powerful computing capability of 560 TOPS, and through its unique clip-style modular system, it can achieve a combination computing power of over 1000 TOPS, meeting the requirements for multi-sensor fusion and large model applications. In terms of algorithms, Horizon has developed the HSD urban driving assistance system based on a one-stage end-to-end architecture, achieving a top-tier human-like experience. The Journey 6P and HSD can perform system-level software and hardware collaborative optimization, ensuring high computing power redundancy while streamlining system structure, effectively shortening development cycles and reducing integration costs. This will greatly optimize the core software and hardware system costs of Robotaxi, laying a solid foundation for commercialization.

Hello Robotaxi’s business leverages the strong support of major investors such as Hello, Ant Group, and CATL, providing not only robust financial backing but also a large user base, mature operational experience, and a rich service ecosystem, making it highly capable of supporting large-scale commercial applications. At this event, Hello debuted its first pre-installed mass-produced Robotaxi model, “HR1” (Hello Robot1), and announced plans to achieve mass production of pre-installed models by 2026, covering more than 10 cities, with the first international city launch, reaching a scale of ten thousand vehicles. By 2027, the company aims to deploy over 50,000 forward-designed Robotaxi models worldwide.

The core advantage of the strong alliance between the technology foundation company and the operator lies in enabling openness to lower the threshold and cost for operators to independently develop underlying technologies, accelerating the iteration and deployment of autonomous driving algorithms. Meanwhile, operators can focus on accumulating scenario data, optimizing operations, and commercialization, achieving efficient collaboration between technology supply and scenario application. Together, they drive cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and safety upgrades for large-scale Robotaxi deployment, enabling rapid and decisive competitiveness in a fierce market.

From L2 to L4: The Path to a Full-Scale Industrial Foundation for Intelligent Driving

Currently, there are two main technical routes for L4 autonomous driving. One is the leapfrog route, which is driven by regulations and systems, starting from L3/L4 core technologies to build a product system that meets global standards. This route emphasizes the completeness of the system architecture, the adaptability of infrastructure, and the mechanisms for functional safety and regulation, building core competitiveness through robustness and compliance. The other is the progressive route, driven by user experience, starting from L2 assisted driving, iteratively validating through real-world scenario data, continuously improving safety and regulatory strategies, gradually covering urban and long-tail scenarios through a vast amount of scenario data and functional closed-loop, and winning the market with rapid iteration and expansion capabilities.

There has been a long-standing debate between two approaches. The core competitiveness of the incremental approach, represented by Tesla and Horizon Robotics, lies in its "speed." Dr. Chen Liming, President of Horizon Robotics, stated at the Bund Summit: "The incremental approach is a superior path to achieving L4. Solid L2 foundational capabilities are a necessary step toward L4. Starting from L2 and expanding the ODD boundaries through massive data iteration, combined with adding system redundancy to gradually realize L4 capabilities, can significantly reduce per-vehicle investment and improve ROI."

Horizon CEO Dr. Chen Liming

Relying on the foundation of tens of millions of shipments in the assisted driving field, Horizon has established an industry-leading complete business closed-loop of "technology - product - mass production." It can efficiently transfer algorithms, data, and engineering experience from L2+ scenarios to L4-level scenarios, continuously optimize system performance to meet Robotaxi application requirements, and achieve rapid replication and large-scale implementation of technology. At the same time, Horizon boasts the industry's broadest network of automakers and ecosystem partners as well as the most open business model. It can not only provide full-stack hardware and software technology solutions but also flexibly support partners in independently developing solutions based on the Journey 6 series platform, comprehensively accelerating Robotaxi application efficiency.

The year 2025 marks a tipping point for the large-scale adoption of urban assisted driving. Horizon Robotics predicts that within the next three years, intelligent driving will achieve hands-off capabilities, in five years eyes-off, and in ten years minds-off. On this long journey of the industry moving "towards higher goals," Horizon Robotics will continue to uphold its role as a provider of technological infrastructure, working together with a broader ecosystem of partners to accelerate the arrival of fully autonomous driving, ultimately facilitating a smart transformation in human mobility.