WeRide Inc. Price & Performance (WRD)

Please note that all numbers stated in management's remarks are in RMB terms, and we will discuss non IFRS measures today, which are more thoroughly explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported in the company's earnings release and filings with the SEC. With that, I'll now turn the call over to the company's Founder, Chairman and CEO, Doctor. Tony Han. Please go ahead, sir.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first earnings call as a Nasdaq listed public company. 2024 was an important year for WeRide marked by significant advance of our core over tax business international expansion and product development. As we continue to build on our positions as an industry leader, we remain committed to our mission of transforming transforming urban living through safe reliable and accessible autonomous driving solutions. [indiscernible] The progress we have made during the fourth quarter has been particularly encouraging. It positions us well for 2025 and beyond. It also reflects our strategic focus on establishing foundation foundations for long term sustainable growth. We believe this will allow us to best deliver on our mission and the create lasting value for our stakeholders. Let's begin with our core business. RoboTaxi. We have made exciting achievements together with our partners. In October, we launched our new purpose fuel robotaxi, the GSR, which represents a significant leap forward in AV technology. Just four months after the launch, GSR has begun her full driverless commercial operation in Beijing becoming our second AV authorized to provide unmanned and paid robot taxi in the capital of China. This rapid development demonstrates both our technology superiority and the increasing regulatory acceptance of AVs.

The debut of GSR also coincided with the third anniversary of our robotax operation in UAE. In the fourth quarter, we started a new chapter in this region by collaborating with Uber to launch WeRide hailing partnership in Abu Dhabi. [indiscernible] This represents the first time that AVs are available on Uber outside The U. S. We are excited to announce that by mid-twenty twenty five, the number of robotaxi on the Uber platform will reach 50. With the support of ABTAPI Integrated Transport Center, Our Service Is Available In Major Areas Including Including Sevyard Thailand, Yas Island and Rock 2 of the Yid International Airport. This marks a key milestone of our commercialization in this region. We believe that the robotax industry has entered an exciting development phase powered by increasing public acceptance and a more favorable regulatory environment. As a first mover, we are well positioned to capitalize this shift. And fully committed to improving the accessibility of our global tech service global tax service globally. In January, we launched our first strategic robotaxi pilot project in Switzerland. In March, we officially obtained a permit to conduct commercial robot taxi ride hailing service in core urban area in Beijing.

Our REY1 Foundation model enables us to operate successfully in diverse environments, Our robotaxi can maneuver smoothly in crowded Tier I cities such as Guangzhou in Beijing, and maintain very stable performance in extreme weather conditions such as very heavy rain and extreme heat. Most importantly, we prioritize safety in our operations. Our RoboTek fleet has completed more than nineteen hundred days of commercial operation on public roads with zero regulatory display caused by autonomous driving systems failure. Next, I'm going to share with you our market strategy which focuses on internationalization. We have been spearheading commercialization in the global market since 2021. Back then, we launched our robo taxi ride hailing service in Abu Dhabi, which was the first of its kind in the region. Our outstanding performance leads to UAE's first and only national permit which was granted to rewrite in 2023. We were greatly encouraged by this success which validate both our technology and service. In new markets, we are committed to fostering constructive dialogue with regulators to realize our mutual visions for safe autonomous driving. We have also built a robust ecosystem by forging strategic partnership with a wide range of key stakeholders. Besides joining forces with Uber in The Middle East, we collaborate with Zurich Airport in Switzerland to provide robust shuttle service.

And partnered with Renault Delphi, and Massive in France to offer trial mobile service We also provide driverless solutions to the largest sanitation operator in Singapore, Chekia Maintenance. These initiatives are evidence of our serious commitment to the global expansion. As of today, we have deployed L4 vehicles across more than 30 cities in 10 countries. Domestically, despite current economic headwinds we have expanded our footprint to over 20 cities in China with our robot taxi, robot bus, robot Sleeper, Robo Van and related services. We are actively building a strong business development team implementing dynamic pricing strategies to drive growth in our whole market. We remain optimistic about her long term potential. Our strategy of engaging in multiple markets provide us with resilience and various opportunities for growth. Thereby mitigating the risks associated with dependence on any single market. Through focusing on international expansion, we are confident in our ability to expand customer base and turbocharge our long term growth. Now let's discuss technology and products that underscore our success. Our global strategy is governed by the focus on technology innovation. It ensures that we remain competitive in every single market we enter. We began deploying end to end models for both ADAS and L4 drivers systems in the second half of twenty twenty four.

The end to end model implies a large VLM, I. E. Visual language model which is pre trained with all the data available from Internet as the backbone to encode the word knowledge. It is then trained with nearly one million hours of carefully selected driving data, from both human drivers and simulated driving scenarios based on our world model. The training data continuously grow with high quality driving data as well as more long tail cases covered by real world data and simulated data. Such approach ensures the trained model has a general understanding of the world as well as deep insight in driving. Eventually, our autonomous driving systems can perform like a seasoned taxi driver in various complex urban scenarios. For our L4 driverless products, such as Jobotax and Jobobust, the end to end model is accompanied with safety critical frameworks to bring human life driving experience while maintaining the same high level of safety required by driver assistance. They are available in our latest version of RoboTaxi, GFR which is currently running in multiple countries. We have also achieved several key breakthroughs in product development in 2024, First and foremost, as mentioned at the beginning, we unveiled our newly our new purpose built RoboTaxi, the GSR, it is carefully tailored for scalable and driverless operation with an system. [indiscernible] industry leading L4 drive by WeRide chassis architecture.

Spacious seating design and WeRide proprietary SensorSuite 5.6. With an autograde computing power of 1,300 TOPS, GSR is able to handle the high level of complexity. We have also put into thorough consideration of user experience such as designated carry on luggage area, a gradual stop button and a electrical power sliding door. GSR has started serving citizens in Beijing in this February and will soon be deployed in Guangzhou and Abu Dhabi. With this groundbreaking product, we are going to redefining our Palm's driving experience by providing a safer and more comfortable mobility option. In other elbow segments, we extended our product family by releasing a new Robo sweeper in the S1 and a new RoboWAN on the W5. Both represent our customer centric productization philosophy. S1 Global Sweeper complements and is deployed alongside our larger S6 Global Sleeper. It can navigate smoothly in narrow space while effectively cleaning various road surfaces. W5 features the largest cargo capacity in its class. Making it fit for various point to point logistics scenarios. We have seen strong demand just one month after we introduced [indiscernible] These innovations expand our addressable market enhance our capabilities and offer to create additional revenue streams beyond our core robotaxi business.

As we look forward to the remainder of 2025, our strategy will focus on setting a stage for future growth through multiple coordinated initiatives. We are preparing to take advantage of the recovery of domestic market and expanding our presence internationally. In tandem, we will continue to diversify our revenue streams through product innovation and upgrades. Finally, we are committed to scaling our global taxi fleet to a meaningful size that drives operational efficiencies and strengthens our industry leadership. These efforts will lead to sustainable long term growth. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Jennifer Lee, to discuss our financial results. Jennifer, please go ahead.

Thank you, Tony. Hello, everyone. Before we get into the financials, please note that all amounts are in R and D and all comparisons are on year over year basis unless otherwise stated. Now let's go through our fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial performance. In 2024, VLite reached record breaking global tech revenue and achieved the highest international revenue since our founding. Total revenue for the fourth quarter decreased by 3% to $141,000,000 primarily due to a decline in our service revenue. Which was partially offset by the growth in product revenue. For the full year of 2024, total revenue was $361,000,000 By revenue type, product revenue saw substantial growth, increasing by 46% to $52,000,000 for the fourth quarter, This growth was mainly driven by a significant rise in the sale of Robotech RoboTaxi, RoboSripper and RoboBAN during the quarter, although partially offset by a decrease in revenue from the sale of RoboBOSSes. Service revenue, on the other hand, decreased to 89,000,000 mainly because customized R and D service for certain clients were completed during the previous quarter this renewed contract expected to take effect in 2025. For the full year of 2024, product revenue increased by 62% to $88,000,000 while service revenue decreased by 21% to $273,000,000 dollars In terms of gross margins, PERVAP gross margin was 17% and service gross margin WeRide 48% for Q4.

For the full year, gross margin for products and services were 1835%, respectively. Now turning into our operating expenses. In the fourth quarter, operating expense rose by 82% to $640,000,000 for the full year of 2024. The operating expense increased by 32% to $2,300,000,000 The change was mainly due to a higher personnel related expense for both Q4 and the full year. As well as an increase in share based compensation. Which we will refer to as SBC from here on. We believe that this increased operating cost will moderate relative to the market. And it will position B. R. I. For growth at scale. Enabled us to build strong distribution network and become front runner in deploying our products in more international markets with better profit margin and significant growth potential. Breaking this further down, R and D expense increased by 32% to $320,000,000 in Q4 and increased by 3% to $1,100,000,000 for the full year of 2024. Excluding SBC, R and D expense increased by 57% to $284,000,000 in Q4 and increased by 39% to RMB855 million for the full year. Of 2024. R and D expense grew as we continue to invest in attracting industry leading talents to constantly improving our technical capabilities and products as well as launching new innovative autonomous driving products and services.

Administrative expense increased by 205% to $3.00 $5,000,000 in Q4 and increased by 82% to RMB1.1 billion for the full year of 2024. Excluding SBC, administrative expense increased by 63% to $66,000,000 in Q4 and increased by 26% to RMB201 million for the full year of 2024. The increase was primarily due to our continuous effort to execute our growth strategy, strengthening our organizational infrastructure and recruit key employee across relevant functions. We also faced higher professional services fee compared to previous quarters as we transitioned to being a public listed company. Selling expense increased by 52% to $15,000,000 in Q4 and increased by 29% to million $54,000,000 for the full year of 2024. Excluding SBC, selling expense were up 7174% for the quarter and for the full year, respectively. This increase reflects our continuous expansion of the sales support initiatives to promote advantage of our autonomous driving products and services, as well as efforts to build brand awareness. With this increased spending, successfully launched more commercial projects across multiple cities in China, and rapidly expand our presence in key markets in Europe, The Middle East and Asia. Our net loss increased by 66% to RMB $592,000,000 in Q4 and increased by 29% to 2,500,000,000.0 the full year of 2024.

On a non IFRS basis, which excludes certain factors as outlined in our earnings release and corresponding U. S. SEC filings The net loss increased by 112% to RMB246 million for Q4 and increased by 60% to RMB802 million for the full year of 2024. As of 12/31/2024, we hold RMB4.9 billion in cash, cash equivalents and time deposits along with RMB40 million in restricted cash and RMB1.7 billion in financial assets measured at fair value for profit and loss.

We expect our solid cash position will allow us to sustain ongoing R and D efforts and extend deployment of our autonomous driving vehicles across more cities. We believe this investment will yield significant commercial returns in the coming years. In closing, 2024 was a strong year for our company V Red has launched autonomous driving testing and operation in 10 countries, achieved record breaking robotaxi revenue and the highest international revenue. Our strategic investment in research and development and other key areas have led to innovative autonomous driving products and expanded global deployments. Looking ahead, we have a robust pipeline of opportunities to work on in 2025. Which we believe will drive the development of advanced technology shaping not only the future of our company, but also the future of the autonomous driving industry. With that operator, we are now ready to take on questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session.

Our first question comes from the line of Tim Schall of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead, Tim.

Hi, this is Tian from MSR. Thanks for taking my questions. [indiscernible] So I have two questions. So the first question is about re license business model because we noticed the industry has been evolving rapidly So we definitely want to know that was the revised current rapid taxi business model. And could management team also share the latest progress. I think that Tony has mentioned several exciting breakthrough but what could be the next? That's my first question. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim. I'll take the first question. Our robotax business model is quite unique from others. For international markets, also China, we provide autonomous vehicles and services to local partners and global platform through a combination of selling the vehicles, charging a fixed service fee and a revenue sharing arrangement. This ensures we have a positive contribution margin from day one. Our strategy focuses on collaborating leading platform in each market so that we can achieve faster robotic deployment better utilization of robotic fleet and stronger pricing power. Our goal is to establish a presence in core cities moving from zero to one to capture the total dress for market for autonomous vehicles. We are expanding globally with certain overseas markets offer very attractive unit economic and TAM. While China provides very rich scenarios to prove and refine our technology and products, [indiscernible] For example, in The Middle East, we partnered with Uber to launch commercial robot taxi services starting from December 2024 in Abu Dhabi. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest commercial global taxi service on set U. S. And China. Will continue to increase the fleet to 50 global taxis by mid-twenty twenty five and improve operation by increasing pickup and drop off points and operation area, Another example is that we began working on pilot testing our robotaxi in Switzerland based the largest local operator and we expect to start open to public trial this year.

Also in China, we run our own platform to offer robot taxi services to users directly. We expect unit economics for RoboTaxi in first year cities in China to turn positive in the coming years. We plan to involve third party asset owners to purchase the fleet and operate them on our platform by then. In short, our goal is to maintain an asset light business model and to scale the Robotech fleet as much as possible.

Thank you. Thanks for the detailed information and sharing. Just a quick follow-up on Robotaxi. [indiscernible] core business and has stayed very topical these days. Could you elaborate a bit more about [indiscernible] You've been robo taxi industry probably both domestically and globally. That's my second question. Thank you. Okay. I will take this question. So first of all, I think we're already separating in the leading position. Robotaxi segment. So I will explain in details. First of all, I think WeRide to maintain her global leadership in both technology and the commercial And if you really look into the numbers, so far we WeRide, we write one of the largest fleet globally. With the best safety records. As I mentioned in the opening remarks, we are the only company that to our best knowledge that hold a track record of zero regulatory display caused by AD15 failure. So that is an amazing number. And also, we are the only company that hosts autonomous driving permits from four countries. We test and operate in various complex environments with dense population and And that one is actually a best testament of our testament of our technological leadership. And with our various products, including RoboTaxi and Robo Van, you can find like our RoboTaxi operation is highly scalable because we really build a very rigorous operating setup including remote assistance center, fleet management system and a sale operation design.

We also over the years, we have established streamlined SOP that enables successful developments in any new city within one month. We have launched a purposely built and eco factory car model GXR that ensures safe and reliable driving performance at a large scale. And last and also most important, since the foundation of rewrite eight years ago, we always treat technology as the base of the whole company. We don't devote tremendous of efforts loss of research efforts, loss of [indiscernible] For R and D and we are really put huge efforts to recruit talents. All of this finally resulting a very, very advanced global taxi technology and which reflects our performance. And if you look at our current safety standards, that reflects our technology advanced So with all of these results, [indiscernible] Thank you, Tony, for the great colors and congratulations again for the remarkable breadth in the global market. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jia Jiaxin of JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead, Jiechi. Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. This is Jao Ji from JPMorgan. First of all, congrats on your recent encouraging business development and expansion in global markets. I have two questions. [indiscernible] fee operation in both domestic and overseas markets what major challenges do you foresee? And the second question is how do you view the future competitive landscape Thank you.

Okay. Let me answer these two questions. I think first question is really about like challenging in scaling global tech operation. That is great question. And I think that is the challenges facing all the automobile driving company who have business in robotaxi. And to rewrite, we believe these challenges also introduce lots of opportunities. Why? Because if you can conquer these challenges and handle these challenges, very well and the way you handle it become a mold of your business. Most specifically, when city level opening up is is necessary for commercial operation at scale. And WeRide has been known to be very good at taking this step by step. Most you already know, authorities like municipal governments or state governments will prefer responsible approach when they adopt AV. And we do have a way to gradually introduce upon driving our product like we can always introduce Robo sweeper at first and also fixed route mini bus which the challenges for safety for this product are relatively low compared to the requirements for Robo taxi. But with this progressive approach, we can gradually build up the mutual trust and actually show the local government like our technology safe and then we can gradually introduce Robo Taxi at a scale.

And new operational challenges will emerge at each of the scale like money will deploy 1,000, 110,000 levels of lead size. And so the backbone is really about robustness and of your technology and how safe can you maintain your robot taxi fleet during operation? With our track record, I think we have already show we can we can handle this challenge pretty well. Okay. That is my answer to your first question about about challenging for scaling global tax operation. The second question is really about future competitive landscape. And as I mentioned during my answer to the first question, you know, like Uber Taxi has a very high entry barrier. So for a huge market, but there's for such a huge market, and there's to our best knowledge, there's only a handful handful of top players maybe four or five. We ride is one of the pioneers and it's very, very unlikely to force us to foresee any new commerce with a significant impact. Some peers actually are doing a remarkable job which propel the health development of the whole industry. For example, Waymo in San Francisco is very exciting. And we also committed to make our own contribution.

We believe that global taxi represents a fundamental shift of core capability compares to traditional WeRide hailing, which heavily relies on human element. So I believe like for the winning robot robot taxi company, they have to adopt lots of cutting edge AI technology and luckily, WeRide has adopted VLA model, end to end model and also WeRide model. All of this large language model based technique facilitate our robot taxi operation and guarantee our safety. We are well positioned to to expand our leadership. What differentiate us is our technology and the business, Flywheel, enabled by our comprehensive skill set. And I think we will continue to improve our our technology and with our fast very fast pace technology advancement, I think we will maintain our leading position So in future, I do believe we, right, will keep our leading position in robotax business. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Li Peng Zhao of CICC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead, Liping. Okay. Good evening, Toni, and Jennifer. I also got two questions here and thanks for taking my questions. The first question is for the robotaxi business. What's your current cost and path to profitability?

And how big a fleet can achieve the breakeven? And second question is about the overseas expansion. So in general, why do you expand your business in so many countries instead of focusing on the domestic market. Thank you. Thank you, Lei Jing. I'll take the first question.

Believe in operating as part of a hybrid fleet as as that will afford us to better ramp up the schedule and utilization of the Rubotek fleet. That said, our business model is not to be an operator outside China. So our margin is positive on day one. As of the bond cost, our current BOM is highly competitive. We understand certain peers unit cost goes over like $150,000 Well, ours is substantially much, much lower and is still reducing. This is mainly benefiting from the mature and advanced EV supply chain in China. As a breakeven, it varies by market and by the business model. But in our target markets, autonomous vehicle operating alongside human drivers and hybrid mode, it can achieve quickly quick profitability due to guaranteed utilization. Like for instance, in high cost markets, like say some of the European countries and some Middle East countries, we expect operating profit margin of approximately 60%. By 02/1930. So in terms of breakeven, as long as the utilization of robotaxis is high, breakeven is achievable. Even with the small global taxi fleet in a new city. However, if like say a robot taxi player operates on its own platform in a small zone, for example, in one fourth or one sixth of a city area, it's relatively difficult to have a high utilization rate unless they have a huge discount and a lot hailing price is very low.

Either way, it's pretty hard to to operate in a smaller zone on its own platform and achieve [indiscernible] breakeven. This is why we will prefer the hybrid mode. For also China. Thank you. Tony, you want to take the second question?

Okay. I'll take the second question. So if I remember correctly, the second question is really about why not just focusing on the domestic market? Well, first of all, I think it's very natural if you can do well in both global market and the mass market, why not do well in both? Actually, look at our track record and our numbers, I think we can say we do well in both markets. So there are several reasons why we can we can do well in both markets with a relatively lean team. But the fact is, we do believe we can do well in both markets. And so one reason is like we have a kind of very general, very universal foundation model And we build out our autonomous driving technology from just the same set of code library and then branch out for different products. That's one unique advantage of rewrite. And besides, we observe a strong demand from countries that are facing challenges of aging population and rising labor costs. Such as Singapore, Japan, European countries. [indiscernible] We can definitely generate enough profit margin. And so with this kind of good market and there are not very strong autonomous driving vehicle company, can deploy there.

So that is definitely a natural market for V WeRide. And we also believe this is definitely a favorable window to engage local stakeholders such as first mover and the shape local regulatory framework of autonomous driving vehicle. And besides a multi market approach help us diversify our revenues streams as I mentioned in the opening remarks. And can improve our resilience against single market fluctuation. If you look at numbers, international markets represent 10% to 30% higher gross margin than domestic markets leveraging the robustness of our products. So with all of these reasons, I think we can definitely do well both in domestic market and in global market and rewrite has unparalleled unique advantages to do both markets very well.

Got it. Thanks, Tanya and Jennifer. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ting Song of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead, Ting. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on all the progress. So I have two a [indiscernible] So what will be your next milestone regarding technology and product development? And the second question is you just mentioned that you have started to deploy end to end models and VOM in your L4 system. Could you elaborate more on this, on the how you could further develop your technology? Thank you.

So since these two questions are technology related, so I will cover this question. Thank you for the question, team. I think there are many exciting developments over last year. So I just want to highlight a couple of them. So in 2025, we plan to deploy hundreds of vehicles across multiple cities. Worldwide. Our next generation AV system will incorporate advanced high dynamic range cameras solid state LIDARs, as well as autograder computed units. So I think these upgrades will significantly reduce the total bond cost. While enhancing our overall system reliability. And ensuring a robust and cost effective solution for autonomous mobility. So next regarding the computer unit, we have its established a strategic partnership with Lenovo. To implement NVIDIA DRIVEAW platform and co develop a next generation domain controller. This auto graded domain controller will feature NVIDIA's latest Blackwell architecture system on chip. It was engineered for L4 autonomous driving. And we anticipate deploying this cutting edge technology in our commercial robotaxi fleet by the second half of this year. I also want to talk a little bit about our data and model By leveraging the extensive data collected from both ADAS and L4 vehicles, We are accumulating millions of long tail traffic scenarios Those data sets will be integrated into our vision language models to encode a complex urban driving environment As a result, our autonomous driving system will achieve unparalleled capability in navigating intricate urban scenarios demonstrating the skill and the intuition of an experienced taxi driver.

So we are committed to advancing autonomous driving technology. Driving innovation, and delivering scalable, reliable solutions for the future of Fumobate. Mobility. I think the second question is about how do we deploy the end to end models. And how do we train the deploy the VOM to our L4 system. So actually, we began developing end to end model approximately a year and a half ago. Initially targeting our ADAS system. So this result was remarkable. So with the end to end system demonstrating exceptional maneuverability and a level of naturalism that exceeded our expectations. We were truly encouraged by those outcomes. So we started integrating the end to end model into our L4 framework. As an additional path planning method So by combining those approach, with the conventional modular design of the Air Force stack, we achieved an optimal balance between safety and comfort in our hybrid system. Over time, we have observed a growing trend where the AI generated path WeRide increasingly selected as a final decision by the AV system. That actually validates the effectiveness of this approach. So more recently, we were inspired about the by the recent development of large language models. We have incorporated vision language models also known as VOMs.

As a foundational framework for our end to end system. The VRAM is pretrained on a vast array of Internet data, enabling to encode a broad understanding of WeRide knowledge So this foundation is then fine tuned using nearly a million hours of meticulously curated autonomous driving data. This dual phase training ensures that the method not only protects the general comprehension of the world, but also deep specialized insights. Into driving dynamics So as a result, our autonomous driving system are capable capable of navigating complex urban environments with the scale and the intuition of an experienced taxi driver. Thank you.

Thank you.

That's really helpful. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Shing Yufeng of UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead, Sing Yu. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. This is Xinyu from UBS. I have two questions here. The first one is that we know that ADAS is a very important component of our service income. Can you elaborate a little bit more about this ADAS service? How do we partner with our sports, our partner and how do and how do tech and technology wise, how do our ADAS initiative interact or transfer for our L4 to Thank you for the question, Jin Yu. We started to code that developer L2 plus ADAS solutions with the world's largest Tier one supplier Bosch. Since 2022. We delivered our first solution for mass production cars within a record breaking eighteen months Our solution has been deployed on the Cherry Xpede platform So our ADAS system is actually designed to seamlessly integrate with our L4 system. Through a unified architecture. It leverages the same data pipeline [indiscernible] simulation platform and off boarding infrastructure. So this one size fits all approach allows engineers to efficiently transition between L2 L3, and L4 development.

So it enabled rapid iteration and deployment across different target platforms. I also want to mention that this insight and expertise gained from our ADAS development have significantly influenced our L4 stack. For instance, the end to end model development for ADAS serves as an alternative for path planning in our Air Force system. Additionally, our HDMAP3 solution provides a robust mechanism to verify map accuracy and determine real time updates during operation.

So the rigorous auto WeRide standard of applied in ADASA have also been instrumental in shaping system requirements defining performance metrics advancing edge simulation tools, refining our validation framework, and mitigating risk associated with commercial deployment. So I think this symbiotic relationship between our ADAS and Air Force systems not only accelerates the development but also ensures a consistent level of reliability and safety across all levels of autonomy. I hope that answers your question. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the color. My second question is about our R and D expense. Can we have any color on the R and D expense? Going forward in 2025? Or over or in more near term over the next few quarters? Thank you. So our R and D expense increased 3.1% in 2024. It's mainly due to increase in personnel related expense resulting from our expansion of the R and D team, FOS the cost of upgrading our sensor suite and hardware design. So we expect our R and D expense to continue to grow at moderate rates. Along with our progress in recruiting top talents to expand our R and D force and also deepening up our compute resources, Throughout the years, we have been very cost cautious and maintain a much lower cash burn rate compared to our global and China peers. So our total liquidity position is around US910 million dollars which is like $6,600,000,000 as of like end of last year. So we believe that our current capital resource will be sufficient to meet our current and anticipated working capital requirements for the next couple of years. As well as for other capital expenditure of R and D and the business expansion.

And in the next few years, we expect to see our actually to see our business to take off So as we make more commercial results, this the liquidity position will be even stronger. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the additional color. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Jia Chi Huang of S. P. D. B. I. Your line is now open. Please go ahead, Jassy. Hi, management. This is Xia from SVBBI. And I've got two questions. My first question is about our business partnership. Could you please share more about our collaborate collaboration with like NVIDIA, Uber and other key business partners?

Okay. So I will take this question. So first of all, I think if you look at major business partners of rewrite, they are Uber, NVIDIA, Bosch, and GE for a reason. Many of them are just like top notch company and a very, very impactful company. So I think it's all because of probably rights unique technology advance and our great business operation and our advantages in the market. That all of these tech giants want to work with us. So for NVIDIA, we have very good relationship since the early years like Huawei just found its company in Silicon Valley and we have been in touch with Jensen and Jasmine Huang as well. Entrepreneur always proof for the best technology and at that time, rewrite was a start up and fills Jameson, the best technology. Today, we still show show the best autonomous driving technology. So and the NVIDIA become our very early investor. And also, we adopt NVIDIA's SoC since a severe error and then we gradually adopt OREX, OREY and now TIX SoC for both Eloqua and Alteryx system based on their [indiscernible] it's I think our relationship with NVIDIA is very strong. And we will continue to use their best SoCs available and to make to facilitate the development of our L4 system.

With Uber, there's this is a definite OEM partnership. As I mentioned in opening remarks, like we are going to have at least 50 global texting out of Dabi by mean of 2025 and the numbers will be only growing bigger and bigger than you will expect more collaborations. And this is definitely a win win partnership in Mid East. And to our bad knowledge, this is the first time Uber have a automobile driving company has their robot tech Taxi hooked up in their platform out of U. S. And we are really excited about providing global tech service at larger scale in other regions together with Uber. And with the hybrid mode, we can conquer lots of potential challenges if you just homegrown your own local taxi service. [indiscernible] luckily and Uber also will only pick the top players and Uber pick WeRide as a close partner. We also have very close partnership with Bosch. Bosch as the number one tier one supplier in the auto industry. Actually set up a lot of standards in ADAS system. And we are the largest part of forging L2 plus at a software stack. And the Ada system co developed by WeRide and Bosch demonstrates top performance in the market in China and you can can see there are some lots of real time broadcast There are head to head comparison to Tesla FSD and the system developed by Vuzhou and Bosch, just the solar sort of absolute technology superiority.

And also in future, we will work for the international market. Together, we are committed to serve wider base of OEM customers both domestically and internationally. With the GD five reason, the GXR we co developed with them, it's really a groundbreaking product [indiscernible] with a lot of features I just mentioned in the beginning. And it's also so suitable for scalability because the great cost of advantage. And we will work closely to continue to upgrade the GXL and possibly for the future models.

Okay.

That's the question about our collaboration. That's my answering clarion. Yes, please go ahead. You have the second question?

Yes, yes. My second question is about our insight on autonomous driving. How do you think about the claim that autonomous driving will take away jobs?

Okay. Another very good question. I think probably last week, I was interviewed by CNBC and I was asked the same question. I think if you look back to the human history, there are many jobs disappeared, like the invention of programmable switch machine replace human operator. The invention of washing machine replace laundry workers. There are lots of jobs, it's a lot tedious. And they are not so friendly to human beings. And also because of in many developed societies, aging problem is a big big society issue. And for aging societies like in Japan and Europe, we are short on human labors, especially for taxi drivers. So if we can replace this kind of jobs with with machines, that's really good. And that doesn't mean like we are killing drones We are actually get rid of jobs that can good for the working class. We are basically facilitating the shifting of the jobs and there will be more other jobs created like in a related area like data labeling and the fleet management and fleet fleet maintenance. I think all of these jobs are very amicable to human being well. And nobody really want to be a tech driver, drive a car for eight hours, sit there.

So we do believe our vision is like we work hard to make all human being live better And this is our mission and mission And so with this all technology development, I think we can definitely just replace some tedious, not so well paid jobs with better job. That's the advance of our human society and we are so lucky we are proud to take part in this progress.

Understood. That's also my questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Leo Yoh of CLSA. Your line is now open. Please go ahead, Leo.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Leo from CLSA. So quick question first. What is your current robotaxi fleet size? And with this fleet, how many orders can you generate per day on average?

I'll take the question. Hello. So for now, we have over 1,000 autonomous vehicles that includes Robotaxi, Robotaxi, Robotax, Robotax, Robotax and Robot Staples, all of our products. As for RoboTaxi, the total RoboTaxi fleet size is around 400 for now. And with 300 plus in China and less than 100 are in the overseas market. But expanding quickly. So the daily orders are not very meaningful as we are still scaling given our operational area is suspending in different like cities. But we are optimistic about the midterm deployment and we are really committed to expand. As I mentioned about in this call, so we believe as long as the utilization rate for the Robotaxi can be higher and we think the hybrid mode it will be very promising about the pickup like getting the daily order to a similar rate of human drivers and maybe higher giving you a little bit of taxi can drive up to twenty hours a day in the near future. Thank you.

Hi, thank you.

I'm glad that you mentioned the other Level four use cases. And could you elaborate more on their business models? And how do you think of these business lines when you propel the robotaxi at the same time?

Okay. I'll take this. So for other use cases, we generally have found the vehicle sales of Robo bus, Robo van, Robo swapers. As well as the recurring fee for the ongoing operational and technical support services. So all the Robo [indiscernible] they are all purpose built products. With high level off market readiness. This is unlike a few years ago, we have retrofitted vehicles. All of those vehicles, they are already purpose built vehicles. And designed from ground up to be autonomous vehicles. So it has very good performance and robustness In the meantime, we expect lower unit cost for those offer use cases as we continue to scale. In terms of the synergies, the different use cases, we do have great synergies with total taxes. So these are the extension and complement of the double tax business. They provide rich data from a variety of of operating scenarios. And for some of the market, [indiscernible] business line tend to serve as the spearheads when we enter into some of the new markets. And in some markets, [indiscernible] prefer products with lower speed and in geosensing deploy understanding autonomous driving So that's the other synergies we can see. WeRide expanding our sales force to promote those products as well as building a broader distribution network Yes.

Thank you.

As there are no further questions, I'd like to hand the conference back to our management for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you all. We are proud of the incredible progress we have made in 2024. And we are keen to drive further innovation as a key to our long term success Thank you all again for joining our call today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us or request us through our IR website. We look forward to speaking with you in our next call. Have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.