DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Momenta, the Chinese autonomous driving company backed by Mercedes-Benz, plans to put robotaxis on the road in Dubai next year and expects its fleet to grow from hundreds of vehicles at the end of 2026 to several thousand by the end of 2027, the head of its robotaxi business told Reuters.
"The size of our robotaxi fleet will be in the ... hundreds at the end of this year and then it will be several thousand at the end of next year," Shuo Xie said in an online interview on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The robotaxi business is still at an early stage. Momenta has more than 100 vehicles deployed in three countries and is testing in five Chinese cities as well as in Munich and Abu Dhabi, Reuters reported. Xie said the company had been in talks with a "few" European cities about further expansion and that Japan was also a priority.
Momenta's larger business is driver-assistance software sold to automakers, and its partners include Toyota and BYD. On Sept. 29, electrive reported that Momenta had signed a global strategic partnership with Dongfeng Stellantis Automotive Technology to develop driver-assistance systems for future Peugeot and Jeep models, with the first electrified models due from 2027 in China, Europe and other markets. The partners also plan to develop automated driving functions, including Level 3. Momenta's systems were installed in about 321,000 additional vehicles in the first half of 2026, and cumulative installations passed one million by the end of June, according to electrive, citing the company's interim report.
The company raised about $751 million in a Hong Kong initial public offering in July, but its shares have fallen some 45 percent from the offering price, Reuters reported, hit in part by caution over Hong Kong-listed AI stocks. Momenta remains unprofitable as it spends heavily on research and development.
Xie said Momenta was working with the chip company XHeart on processors designed for its driving software, which she said should cost "significantly lower" than chips of equivalent computing power from Nvidia. XHeart is developing a next-generation chip, the X9. "In a couple of years the robotaxis that I am going to deploy around the world, hopefully a lot of them will be hosted on that X9 chip," she said.
Momenta also has a robotaxi partnership with Uber. The two companies said in September 2025 that they planned to begin testing robotaxis in Munich in 2026, initially with safety operators aboard, TechCrunch reported. In Dubai, Momenta would join a crowded field: the city opened a dedicated autonomous vehicle test ground at Dubai Silicon Oasis on Sept. 27, where Tesla, WeRide and Pony.ai have already run trials, The National reported.
Momenta did not give a launch date or fleet size for Dubai.
