Wenfar Mobility has obtained approval from California, USA to allow its self-driving cars to carry passengers. According to public information, Wenfar Mobility was founded in 2017. It has carried out research and development, testing, and operation of autonomous driving in 30 cities across 7 countries worldwide. It also has autonomous driving licenses in China, the United States, Singapore, and four other regions. The application scenarios cover smart travel, smart freight, and smart sanitation, and it has entered the stage of commercialization of autonomous driving.

In November 2019, Wenfar Mobility launched the first nationwide Robotaxi commercial operation service completely open to the public, covering the core city open roads of 144.65 square kilometers in Huangpu District and Development Zone in Guangzhou. The operation has already lasted for more than 1,600 days. At the end of January 2021, Wenfar Mobility's self-driving taxi entered Guangzhou CBD, becoming the first autonomous driving company to enter the core urban area of a first-tier city. Subsequently, its self-driving minibuses entered Guangzhou and Nanjing for normalized testing. In early February 2021, Wenfar Mobility obtained the ride-hailing operation license and became the first autonomous driving company in China with qualification to operate ride-hailing business. In April of the same year, Wenfar Mobility received a full self-driving testing license issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and became the only start-up company that has testing license in both China and the United States.

This July, Wenfar Mobility submitted a prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and plans to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. Updated prospectus indicates the IPO will issue 6.452 million ADSs at a price range between $15.5 to $18.5 per ADS. After the offering, the company's market value will be approximately $5.02 billion if calculated at the high end of the price range.

It is worth noting that recently, the market has witnessed a wave of IPOs in the self-driving industry. In August, autonomous driving computing chip company Black Sesame Intelligence was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and autonomous driving computing solution provider Horizon Robotics plans to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Smart autonomous driving company Pony.ai may go public in the United States as early as September this year, and companies such as Zoomcar, Youju Innovations, and Momenta are also competing for IPO market.

In terms of policies, on July 3rd, five departments jointly announced the list of pilot cities for the “vehicle-road-cloud” integrated application pilot of intelligent connected vehicles, covering 20 cities in total. On July 8th, the Beijing Economic and Information Bureau issued a draft of the Beijing Autonomous Driving Vehicle Regulations, which proposed to support L3/L4 autonomous driving vehicles for urban public electric bus transportation, ride-hailing, car rental, and other travel services.

In terms of industry, Baidu's Apollo Go has expanded massively in Wuhan with a service area of more than 3000 square kilometers, covering a population of 7.7 million people. It plans to deploy a thousand vehicles in Wuhan by 2024. Wuhan has become the largest unmanned driving operation service area in the world. In addition to Wuhan, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou have also opened Robotaxi full self-driving commercial trial operation and Shanghai's unmanned driving taxis are expected to open to the public in August.

Huachuang Securities pointed out that compared with traditional taxis, Robotaxis have significant advantages. The construction of the “vehicle-road-cloud” integrated application has helped the commercial application of Robotaxis. With the promotion of the application pilot of intelligent driving, the penetration rate of high-level autonomous driving is expected to accelerate, and the intelligent driving industry chain will continue to benefit. Northeast Securities predicts that the Robotaxi industry will usher in a high-speed development period in the next five years, and the market space in 2028 will reach 15.568 billion yuan. Therefore, it is bullish on core companies with comprehensive capabilities such as algorithms and operations in the industry.

Related stocks: Zhangshan Car-Tech Co., Ltd. (01274): Zhangshan Car-Tech is a Chinese autonomous driving solution provider focusing on the autonomous driving controller. The company has a commercialized L2 to L2+ level autonomous driving solution (L2+ level is not the official classification under SAE(1) standards) and is currently developing L2 to L4 level autonomous driving solutions for OEMs. Public information shows that the company has already obtained fixed-point letters of intent related to 16 well-known OEM customers, such as Geely Automobile, Great Wall Motor, Chery Automobile, and Dongfeng Motor, some of whom have or are expected to purchase autonomous driving domain controllers and iFC products from the company.

Concept-related stocks:

Wenfar Mobility Technology (01274): Wenfar Mobility Technology is a Chinese autonomous driving solution provider focusing on the autonomous driving controller. The company has a commercialized L2 to L2+ level autonomous driving solution (L2+ level is not the official classification under SAE(1) standards) and is currently developing L2 to L4 level autonomous driving solutions for OEMs. Public information shows that the company has already obtained fixed-point letters of intent related to 16 well-known OEM customers, such as Geely Automobile, Great Wall Motor, Chery Automobile, and Dongfeng Motor, some of whom have or are expected to purchase autonomous driving domain controllers and iFC products from the company.

Nanfang Black Sesame Group (02533): Nanfang Black Sesame Group is a leading supplier of car-grade smart car computing SoCs and SoC-based solutions. According to Frost & Sullivan, based on the shipment volume of high-performance SoCs for automotive-grade in 2023, Nanfang Black Sesame Group is the third largest supplier globally, and the second largest local supplier in China, and has entered the top tier of the global autonomous driving AI chip field.

Nexteer (01316): The company and its subsidiaries (collectively referred to as the Group) are mainly engaged in designing and manufacturing steering and power transmission systems, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and automated driving (AD) systems as well as component business for auto manufacturers and other automotive-related companies.

Zhejiang Shibao (01057): Zhejiang Shibao's products include steering columns, DP-EPS, R-EPS, intelligent steering systems, and wire-controlled steering systems.

Ushr (09680): The company is a leading domestic smart mobility service platform and a pioneer in commercializing Robotaxi (autonomous driving taxis), with Robotaxi services already launched in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two first-tier cities in China.