Companies / WeRide
Robotaxi and autonomous driving
WeRide
State of play as of
A Guangzhou autonomous-driving company listed on Nasdaq, exporting its driving stack into Europe and the Gulf through local operators rather than shipping vehicles.
WeRide is the clearest current example of a Chinese AI export that no tariff schedule describes. It sells autonomous driving rather than cars: in the markets it has entered, a local partner supplies the vehicles, the depot, the insurance and the relationship with the regulator, and WeRide supplies the driving. Spain issued the country’s first Level 4 passenger-vehicle operating licence in September 2026 to WeRide jointly with Uber and a Spanish rental group’s self-driving unit, on the same day an Italian supplier association asked the EU for an 80 percent tariff on Chinese vehicles and parts, which is a measure written for objects crossing a border and not for a service performed inside one. The company’s own claim is permits in nine countries, and the caveat that belongs next to it is that a permit is a permission and not a running commercial service. We track what WeRide is licensed to do, what it earns, and which of its numbers are the company’s own, with dates and sources.
Fast facts
- What it is
- A Chinese autonomous-driving company selling systems from L2 to L4 across mobility, logistics and sanitation. Its product line includes the GXR robotaxi, the WePilot 3.0 end-to-end driving stack, and GENESIS, its driving-simulation system.WeRide company materials
- Listing
- WeRide Inc. trades on Nasdaq as WRD and is also quoted over the counter as WRDIF. It files with the SEC as a foreign private issuer under CIK 0001867729, and its most recent annual report is a Form 20-F filed 23 April 2026. Its registered business address is in Guangzhou.SEC EDGAR filer record
- Permits, and what a permit is
- WeRide says it is the only company whose products hold autonomous-driving permits in nine countries, naming China, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United States. That is the company’s own claim, made 10 September 2026, and it counts permissions rather than commercial services.WeRide, via its WeChat account, reported by ITHome
- Spain, first Level 4 licence
- Spain’s Dirección General de Tráfico issued the country’s first operating licence for a Level 4 autonomous passenger vehicle on 10 September 2026, jointly to WeRide, Uber and AVOMO, the self-driving unit of the Spanish rental group Moove Cars, with the Madrid city government supporting the application. It was granted under Spain’s ES-AV framework and clears the three to deploy vehicles on public roads.WeRide, via its WeChat account, reported by ITHome
- The Uber plan, as stated
- Madrid is the fourth city in a plan WeRide and Uber say will reach 15 cities and tens of thousands of vehicles before 2030. Commercial robotaxi service to the public in Madrid is expected before the end of 2026 once operating and regulatory conditions are met. Both are stated targets, not delivered fleets.WeRide, via its WeChat account, reported by ITHome
- Reported financials
- First-half 2026 revenue of 350 million yuan, about 49 million dollars, up 73 percent year on year, with second-quarter revenue up 82 percent year on year and 103 percent on the prior quarter. Gross margin reached 37.5 percent, nine points better than a year earlier. Small absolute numbers on a steep slope.Company results, via Sina Finance
The state of play
Spain’s Dirección General de Tráfico issued the country’s first operating licence for a Level 4 autonomous passenger vehicle, and it went jointly to three companies: WeRide, Uber, and AVOMO, the self-driving unit of the Spanish rental group Moove Cars, with the Madrid city government supporting the application. The permit was granted under Spain’s ES-AV framework and clears the three of them to deploy vehicles on public roads, with commercial service to the public expected before the end of 2026 once the operating and regulatory conditions are met. Madrid is the fourth city in a WeRide and Uber plan the two say will reach 15 cities and tens of thousands of vehicles before 2030, and WeRide said the same day that it is the only company whose products hold autonomous-driving permits in nine countries: China, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The shape of the deal is the part that travels. The vehicles sit on a European rental group’s balance sheet and are dispatched through an American app, and the Chinese contribution is the driving, so the export crosses no border as an object. On the same morning an Italian auto-supplier association asked the EU for an 80 percent tariff on Chinese vehicles and parts above a quota, a measure that covers neither software nor fleet operations nor a permit.
WeRide reported first-half 2026 revenue of 350 million yuan, about 49 million dollars, up 73 percent from a year earlier, with second-quarter revenue up 82 percent year on year and 103 percent on the prior quarter. Gross margin reached 37.5 percent, nine points better than a year ago. The numbers are small in absolute terms and robotaxi revenue has been the standing joke of the self-driving industry for a decade, so the reason to record them is the slope and the margin rather than the level. It is also the number to hold the permit count against: nine countries of permissions has to turn into service revenue somewhere, and this is the line where that would show up.
Our reporting on WeRide
- Spain and Croatia Opened Public Roads to Chinese Robotaxis
Spain’s Dirección General de Tráfico issued the country’s first operating licence for a Level 4 autonomous passenger vehicle on 10 September, and it went jointly to three companies: WeRide, Uber, and AVOMO, the self-driving unit of the Spanish rental group Moove Cars, with the Madrid city government supporting the application. The permit was granted under Spain’s ES-AV framework and clears the three of them to put vehicles on public roads, with commercial service to the public expected before the end of 2026 once the operating and regulatory conditions are met. Madrid is the fourth city in a WeRide and Uber plan the two say will reach 15 cities and tens of thousands of vehicles before 2030, and WeRide says it is now the only company whose products hold autonomous-driving permits in nine countries, naming China, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The same morning Pony.ai and the mobility operator Verne said they had begun fully driverless robotaxi passenger testing on public roads in Zagreb, which they call the first anywhere in Europe. Set against both, Anfia chairman Roberto Vavassori asked the EU for an 80 percent tariff on Chinese vehicles and parts above a quota of 8 percent of annual new-car registrations, per Reuters, on top of the combined 18 to 45 percent the 2024 measure already charges Chinese electric vehicles. The proposal covers vehicles and parts and says nothing about software, fleet operations or a permit: a tariff is charged on an object crossing a border, and an operating licence is granted for a service performed inside one. In both deals that day the Chinese company supplied the driving stack while a European operator supplied the cars, the depot, the insurance and the relationship with the regulator, which is a template that travels without a vehicle being imported. Nine permits is nine permissions and no commercial service, Madrid is an expectation for later this year, and Zagreb is a test with passengers in it.
- The Carmaker
BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, published its first AI paper. HyWorldVLA, a two-branch driving world model, scored 90.59 on the public NAVSIM v1 self-driving benchmark, which BYD’s paper reports as the top score posted on it, and held a 19-point lead over the strongest baseline across 655 rain-and-fog scenes. Paired with the in-house Xuanji A3, which BYD calls China’s first 4nm automotive-grade driving chip at about 700 TOPS, it gives BYD its own data, model and silicon stack. The benchmark record is not yet a shipping product and BYD has named no deployment date.
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Common questions
What is WeRide?
WeRide (文远知行) is a Chinese autonomous-driving company based in Guangzhou that sells driving systems from L2 to L4 across mobility, logistics and sanitation. Its products include the GXR robotaxi, the WePilot 3.0 end-to-end driving stack and the GENESIS simulation system. It trades on Nasdaq as WRD and files with the SEC as a foreign private issuer. Its business model abroad is to supply the driving stack while a local operator supplies the vehicles, the depot and the regulatory relationship, which is how it entered Spain in September 2026 alongside Uber and the Spanish rental group Moove Cars.
Which countries has WeRide been permitted to operate in?
WeRide said on 10 September 2026 that it is the only company whose products hold autonomous-driving permits in nine countries, and it named them: China, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United States. That figure is the company’s own count, and the distinction it papers over is worth keeping: a permit is a permission to operate, not a commercial service in operation. Spain, the newest of the nine, has a licence but no public service yet.
Is WeRide running a commercial robotaxi service in Madrid?
Not yet. Spain’s Dirección General de Tráfico issued the country’s first Level 4 autonomous passenger-vehicle operating licence on 10 September 2026, jointly to WeRide, Uber and AVOMO, the self-driving unit of Moove Cars, under the ES-AV framework. The licence clears the three of them to deploy vehicles on public roads. Commercial robotaxi service to the public is expected before the end of 2026, once the operating and regulatory conditions are met, which makes it an expectation on a stated timetable rather than a running business.
Is WeRide making money?
It is growing quickly off a small base and has not been reported profitable. WeRide reported first-half 2026 revenue of 350 million yuan, about 49 million dollars, up 73 percent year on year, with second-quarter revenue up 82 percent from a year earlier and 103 percent on the prior quarter, and gross margin of 37.5 percent, nine points better than a year ago. Those are the figures worth watching against the permit count, because permissions in nine countries only matter commercially when they turn into service revenue.
How is WeRide different from Baidu’s Apollo Go?
Both are Chinese robotaxi operations expanding abroad, and both enter new markets inside apps riders already use rather than building demand from zero: Apollo Go through the Lyft-owned FREENOW in London, WeRide through Uber in Madrid. The visible differences are corporate and geographic. Apollo Go is a service inside Baidu, running the Apollo stack in its own purpose-built RT6, and its 2026 expansion ran through Hong Kong, Switzerland, Kazakhstan and London. WeRide is a separately listed company on Nasdaq that sells its driving stack to local partners who own the vehicles, and it counts permits in nine countries. Both are at the stage of collecting permissions faster than revenue.
Every dated fact above traces to a named source, and where it comes from our reporting, to the dated issue that carried it. Where a claim is self-reported or disputed, we say so.