Investor Feedback on Robotaxis: China Autos & Shared Mobility | Asia Pacific

Research evidence excerpt

Investor Feedback on Robotaxis: China Autos & Shared Mobility | Asia Pacific

Idea

July 21, 2026 01:57 AM GMT

Morgan Stanley Asia Limited+MChina Autos & Shared Mobility | Asia Pacific Tim Hsiao

Equity Analyst

Investor Feedback on Robotaxis Tim.Hsiao@morganstanley.comPeggy Wang +852 2848-1982

Research Associate

Peggy.Pc.Wang@morganstanley.com +852 3963-3934

The debate has moved beyond whether the technology works to Shelley Wang, CFA

when the market can scale and who captures the economics EquityShelley.Wang@morganstanley.comAnalyst +852 3963-0047

once it does. As we have argued, converting the first 1% of the Joey Xu, CFA

global taxi fleet is a multiplier, not a trial, and the race to scale is Joey.Xu@morganstanley.com +852 3963-0337

also becoming a race to boost market cap.

While many investors we spoke to were still wondering if the robotaxi theme was

premature, we believe that from demand to data, and scale to network effects, the

robotaxi flywheel is gaining significant momentum. As highlighted in our note

Robotaxi Diffusion – Robots, Taxis and the Trillion-Dollar Traffic Portal, we think China Autos & Shared Mobility

Asia Pacific

that while the race to develop the technology for robotaxis is well underway, the Industry View In-Line

race to make the economics work has only just begun. Success will be determined

by density, cost, and distribution as the industry evolves from a collection of pilot

programs into a genuine transportation utility and distributed mobility network.

We believe initial alpha is less likely to accrue to generic OEM assembly, and instead

go to tech and consumer-access owners and low cost AV-stack enablers. Thus, we

prefer WeRide and Hesai. We think XPeng's 3Q model launch is also worth watching

and will be valuation accretive.