Good morning. There have been an awful lot of Chinese self-driving car companies making moves to go public lately, haven’t there? Off the top of my head: WeRide, Pony.ai, Momenta, Horizon Robotics.
(The last one successfully did so in Hong Kong today, by the way; shares were up 11% at the time of writing.)
The IPO rush is as much a sign of the improving state of the market as it is a reflection that autonomous vehicles are, somewhat surprisingly, hot again. In 2016, a whimsical Fortune magazine cover declared, “Silicon Valley Goes to Detroit;” nearly a decade later, it feels like maybe both have hopped a direct flight to Beijing. —Andrew Nusca
P.S. Speaking of self-driving cars: In yesterday’s edition, the headline of the first item misstated the finances of GM’s Cruise. The company is certainly cutting expenses, but it won’t be “driving toward profit” until it restarts service and generates more revenue.
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