Tony Han; Chief Executive Officer; WeRide Inc
Jennifer Lee; Chief Financial Officer; WeRide Inc
Yan Li; Chief Technology Officer; WeRide Inc
Tim Hsiao; Analyst; Morgan Stanley
Jia Zheng; Analyst; JP Morgan
Li Ping Zhao; Analyst; CICC
Ting Song; Analyst; Goldman Sachs
Xinyu Guo; Analyst; UBS
Jia Qi Huang; Analyst; SPDBI
Operator
Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to WeRide's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions)
Please note that today's event is being recorded.
The company's financial and operating results were released by the news wire earlier today and are currently available online. Joining us today are WeRide's Founder, Chairman and CEO, Dr. Tony Xu Han, and CFO, Ms. Jennifer Lee. In addition, Co-Founder and CTO, Dr. Yan Li will also be available during the question and answer session.
Before we continue, I'd like to refer you to the safe harbor statement in the company's earnings press release, which also applies to this call, as today's call will include forward-looking statements, including our strategies and future plans. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by these for the statements as a result of various important factors, and please refer to the risk factors section of our US perspectives filed with the SEC for full disclosure of these risk factors.
Please note that all numbers stated in matchment's prepared 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, Dr. Tony Han.
Tony Han
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first earnings call as a not that listed property company 2024 was an important year for we write marked by significant advance of our core tax business, international expansion, and product development.
As we continue to build on our positions as an industry leader, we may, we remain committed to our mission of transferring, transforming urban living through safe, reliable, and accessible autonomous driving solutions. The progress we have made during the fourth quarter has been particularly encouraging.
And the positions of well for 2025 and beyond. It also reflects our strategic focus on establishing foundations for long-term sustainable growth. We believe this will allow us to best deliver on our mission and 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 built robotaxi, the GXR, which represents a significant leap forward in AV technology. Just four months after the launch GXR has begun her full driverless commercial operation in Beijing, becoming our second AV authorized to provide unmanned and pay robotaxi in the capital of China.
This rapid development demonstrates both our techno technology superiority and the increasing regulatory acceptance of AV's. The debut of GXR also coincided with the 3rd anniversary of our robotaxi operation in UAE.
In the fourth quarter, we started a new chapter in this region by collaborating with Uber to launch a ride-hailing partnership in Abu Dhabi. This represents the first time that AVs are available on Uber outside the US. We are excited to announce that by mid-2025, the number of global taxi on the Uber platform will reach 50.
With the support of Abu Dhabi Integrated Transport Center, our service is available in major areas, including Saadiyat Island, Yas Island, and Rock to the International Airport. This marks a key milestone of our commercialization in this region. We believe that the global taxi industry has entered an exciting development phase, powered by increasing public acceptance and a more favourable regulatory environment.
As a first mover, we are well positioned to capitalize this shift and fully committed to improving the accessibility of our global tax 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 robotaxi ride-hailing service in core urban area.
In Beijing, our WeRide one foundation model enables us to operate successfully in diverse environments. Our robotaxi can manoeuvre smoothly in crowded tier one cities such as Guangzhou and Beijing and maintain very stable performance in extreme weather conditions such as very heavy rain and extreme heat.
Most importantly, we prioritize our operations, our robotaxi fleet has completed more than 1,900 days of commercial operation on public roads with zero regulatory discipline caused by automous driving system 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 robotaxi 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 WeRide 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 Mideast.
We collaborate with the Zurich Airport in Switzerland to provide global bus shuttle service and partnered with Renault, Beti, and Macif in France to offer trial global bus service. We also provide driverless solutions to the largest sanitation operator in Singapore, chat of 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 headwind, we have expanded our footprint to over 20 cities in China with our robotaxi, robus, robosweeper, robovan, and related services. We are actively building a strong business development team and implementing dynamic pricing strategies to drive growth in our home market.
We remain optimistic about her long term potential our strategy of engaging in multiple markets provide us with resilience and the 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 the customer base and the turbocharge our long-term growth.
Now, let's discuss technology and products that underscore 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 driverless systems in the second half of 2024.
The end-to-end model employs a large VLM visual language model, which is pre-trained with all the data available from the internet as a backbone to encode the word knowledge. It is then trained with nearly 1 million hours of carefully selected driving data from both human drivers and the simulated driving scenarios based on a 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 an approach ensures the train 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 robotech and robobus, the end-to-end model is accompanied with safety critical frameworks to bring humanlike driving experience while maintaining the same high level of safety required by driverless system. They are available in our latest version of robotaxi GXR, 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 GXR. It is carefully tailored for scalable and driverless operation with an improved redundant system.
It features an industry leading L4 drive-by we chassis architecture, spacious seating design, and WeRide proprietary sensor suite 5.6. With an auto-grid computing power of 1,300 tops, GXR is able to handle the highest level of complexity. We have also put into further consideration of user experience such as designated carry-on luggage area, a gradual stop button, and an electrical power sliding door.
GXR has started serving citizens in Beijing in this February and will soon be deployed in Guangzhou and Abu Dhabi. With this ground breaking product, we are going to redefine autonomous driving experience by providing a safer and more comfortable mobility option. In other L4 segments, we extended our product family by releasing a new robosweeper, the S1, and a new robot one on the W5. Both represent our customer-centric productization philosophy.
S1 robosweeper complements and is deployed alongside our larger S6 global sweeper. It can navigate smoothly in narrow space while effectively cleaning various road surface W5 features the largest cargo capacity in its class, making it fit for various point to point logistic scenarios. We have seen strong demand just one month after we introduced the W5 Global one. These innovations expand our addressable market, enhance our capabilities, and offer to create additional revenue streams beyond our call taxi business.
As we look forward to the remainder of 2025, our strategy will focus on setting the stage for future growth through multiple coordinated initiatives. We are preparing to take advantage of the recovery of domestic market and expanding our process internationally. In tandem, we will continue to diversify our revenue streams through product innovation and upgrade.
Finally, we are committed to scaling our global tax 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.
Jennifer Lee
Thank you, Tony. Hello, everyone. Before we get into the financials, please know that all amounts are in RMB 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, we reached record breaking global tax revenue and achieved the highest international revenue since our funding. Total revenue for the fourth quarter decreased by 3% to RMB141 million, 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 RMB361 million. By revenue type, product revenue saw substantial growth, increasing by 46% to RMB52 million for the fourth quarter. This growth was mainly driven by a significant rise in the sale of robotaxi, roboSweepper, and robovan during the quarter, although partially offset by a decrease in revenue from the sale of robobuses.
Service revenue, on the other hand, decreased to RMB89 million, mainly because customized R&D service for certain clients were completed during the previous quarter, with renewed contract expected to take effect in 2025.
For the full year of 2024, product revenue increased by 62% to RMB88 million, while service revenue decreased by 21% to RMB273 million. In terms of gross margins, product growth margin was 17% and service growth margin was 48% for Q4. For the full year, gross margin for products and services were 18% and 35% respectively.
Now turning into our operating expenses. In the fourth quarter, operating expense rose by 82% to RMB640 million for the full year of 2024. The operating expense increased by 32% to RMB2.3 billion. 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 costs will moderate relative to the market, and it will position the right 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&D expenses increased by 32% to RMB320 million in Q4 and increased by 3% to RMB1.1 billion for the full year of 2024, excluding SBC. R&D expense increased by 57% to RMB284 million in Q4 and increased by 39% to RMB857 million for the full year of 2024.
R&D expense grew as we continue to invest in attracting industry leading talents to constantly improving our tech technical capabilities and products, as well as launching new innovative autonomous driving products and services.
Administrative expense increased by 205% to RMB305 million in Q4 and increased by 82% to RMB1.1 billion for the full year of 2024, excluding SBC, administrative expense increased by 63% to RMB66 million 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 employees across relevant functions. We also face higher professional services fee compared to previous quarters as we transition to being a public listed company.
Selling expenses increased by 52% to RMB15 million in Q4 and increased by 29% to RMB14 million to RMB54 million for the full year of 2024, excluding SBC selling expenses were up 71% and 74% for the quarter and for the full year respectively.
This increase reflects our continuous expansion of the sales and for initiative to promote the advantage of our autonomous driving products and services, as well as efforts to build brand awareness. With this increased spending, we 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 RMB592 million in Q4 and increased by 29% to RMB2.5 billion for the full year of 2024 on a non-IFRS basis, which excludes certain factors as outlined in our earning relief and corresponding US 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 December 31, 2024, we hold RMB4.9 billion in cash equivalent, 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&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. WeRide has launched autonomous driving testing and the 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 deployment.
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.
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
Tim Hsiao, Morgan Stanley.
Tim Hsiao
Hi, this is Tian from MSL. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on [NaO] project practices, globally. So, I have two questions. So, the first question. It's about revise this business model because we noticed, the industry has been evolving rapidly.
So we definitely want to know that what is the revise current local taxi business model and could management team also share the latest progress. I think that Tony has mentioned several exciting breakthroughs, about what could be the next? So that's my first question.
Jennifer Lee
Thank you, Tim. I'll take the first question. Our robotax business model is quite unique for others. For international markets outside 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 with leading platform in each market so that we can achieve faster robot taxi deployment, better utilization of robotaxi fleet, and stronger pricing power. Our goal is to establish a presence in core cities, moving from zero to one to capture the total stressful market for autonomous vehicles. We're expanding globally with certain overseas markets offer very attractive unit economic and time.
While China provides very rich scenarios to prove and refine our technology and products. For example, in the Middle East, we partnered with Uber to launch commercial robotaxi services starting from December 2024 in Abu Dhabi. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest commercial robotaxi service outside the US and China. We will continue to increase the fleet to 50 robotaxis by mid-2025 and improve operation by increasing pickup and drop-off points and operation areas.
Another example is that we began working on pilot testing of robotaxi in Switzerland, with the largest local operator, and we expect to start open to public trial this year. Yeah, Also, in China, we run our own platform, we go to offer robotaxi services to users directly. We expect Unit Economic for robotaxi in first year cities in China to turn positive in the coming years. We plan to evolve 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 and as a life model and to scale the robotic lied as much as possible.
Tim Hsiao
Thanks for the detailed information and sharing. Just a quick follow-up, on robotaxi because we think that robotaxis, as Tony mentioned, remains the revise core business and a very topical these days. Could you elaborate a bit more about WeRide's current market position, in robotaxi industry, probably both domestically and globally? That's my second question.
Tony Han
Okay, I will take this question. So, first of all I think wea is definitely in a leading position in robotaxi segment. So, I will explain more in details. First of all, I think we write maintain her global leadership in both technology and commercialization.
And if you really look into the numbers, so far, we deployed one of the largest fleet globally with the best safety records. As I mentioned in the opening remarks, we are the only company back to our best knowledge that hold a track record of zero regulatory displaying caused by ADAS system failure. So that is an amazing number.
And also, we are the only company that holds autonomous driving permits from four countries. We test and operate in various complex environments with dense population and that one is actually a best testament of our, a testament of our technological leadership and with our various products, including robotaxi and robovan. 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 fail 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 cost-effective car model GXR that ensures safe and reliable driving performance at a large scale and last and also most important since the foundation of WeRide eight years ago, we always treat technology at the base of the whole company.
We don't devote tremendous efforts lots of research, efforts, lots of, fun fundings for R&D and we really put huge efforts to recruit talents. All of this finally result in a very, very advanced global taxi, technology, which reflects our performance and if you look at our current safety standards that reflects our technology advance so in so.
With all of these results I do believe WeRide is definitely in a leading position.
Tim Hsiao
Thank you, Tony, for the great callers and congratulations again for the remarkable recipe in the global market.
Operator
Jia Zheng, JP Morgan.
Jia Zheng
Yes, thank you for taking my questions. This is from JP Morgan. First of all, congrats on your recent encouraging business development and expansion in global markets. I have two questions. The first one is, while scaling global taxi 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 from here?
Yan Li
Okay. Let me answer these two questions. I think the first question is really about like challenging in scaling global tech operation. That is a great question, and I think that is the challenges facing all the autonom driving company who has a business in robotaxi.
And to WeRide that we believe these challenges also introduced lots of opportunities. Why? Because if you can conquer these challenges and handle the challenges very well, and the way you handle it become the mold of your business most specifically, city level opening up is necessary is necessary for commercial operation at scale. And weide has been known to be very good at taking this step by step.
Most authorities like municipal governments or state governments will prefer a responsible approach when they adopt AV and WeRide has a way to gradually introduce autonomous driving product like we can always introduce robosweeper at first and also fix up minibus, which, the challenges for safety for this product are relatively low compared to the requirements for local taxi but with this progress, 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 robotaxi at a scale and new crystal challenges will emerge at each of the scale like when you deploy a 1,000, 10,000, and 100,000 levels of fleet size.
And so, the backbone is really about the robustness and of your technology and how safe can you maintain your robotaxi fleet during the operation. With our tracker record, I think we have already shown we can handle this challenge, pretty well. Okay, that's, that is my answer to the first question about the, about challenging for gaining global tax operation.
The second question is really about future competitive landscape and as I mentioned but during my answer of the first question, like global 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 hand of a handful of top players, maybe four or five. We are is one of the pioneers and it's very unlikely foresee any newcomers with a significant impact some peers.
Actually are doing a remarkable jobs, which propel the health development of the whole industry. For example, way more 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 compared to traditional ride-hailing, which heavily relies on human element.
So I believe like, for the winning robot, robotaxi company, they have to adopt lots of cutting edge AI technology and luckily. WeRide has adopt VLA model, end-to-end model and also word model. All of this, large language model-based technique facilitate our robotaxi operation and guarantee our safety.
We are well positioned to tell our leadership, what differentiates us is our technology and the business flywheel enabled by our comprehensive skill set and I think we will continue to improve our technology and with our fast, very fast-paced technology development, I think we will maintain our leading position. So in future, I do believe we will keep our leading position in robotech business.
Jia Zheng
All right. Thank you.
Operator
Li Ping Zhao, CICC.
Li Ping Zhao
Okay, good evening, Tony, 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?
Jennifer Lee
I'll take the first question.
We believe in operating as part of a hybrid fleet as that will afford us to better ramp up the schedule and utilization of the global taxi 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 bond is highly competitive. We understand certain tiers unit cost goes over like $150,000. Well, ours is substantially much lower and it's still reducing. This is mainly benefiting from the mature and advanced eBay supply chain in China.
At the break even, it varies by market and by the business model, but in our target market, autonomous vehicle operating alongside human drivers in a hybrid mode, it can achieve quickly, quick profitability due to guaranteed utilization, like for instance, in high costs markets like say some of the European countries and some Middle East countries, we expect the operating profit margin of approximately 60% by 2030.
So in terms of break even, as long as the utilization of robotax is high, breakeven is achievable even with a small robotech lead in a new city. However, if like say a robotaxi player, operates on its own platform in a small zone, for example, in 1/4 or 1/6 of a city area, it's relatively difficult to have a high utilization rate unless, they have a huge discount and the healing price is very low.
Either way, it's pretty hard to to operate in a smaller zone on its own platform and to achieve quick even. This is why we will prefer the hybrid mode for outside China.
Tony, you want to take the second question?
Tony Han
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 domestic 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 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 a very general, very universal foundation model and, we build up our auto drive technology from just the same set of code library and then branch out for different products that's one unique advantage of revise.
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. So, they usually tradition, they are very good market. We can Definitely generating 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 we right and we also believe this is a definitely a favorable window to engage local stakeholders such as a first mover and shape local regulatory framework of our autonomous driving vehicle.
And besides a multi multi-market approach helps us diversify our revenue streams as I mentioned in the opening remarks, and that can improve our resilience against single market fluctuation. If you look at numbers, international markets represent 10% to 30% higher growth margin than the domestic market, 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 we have unparalleled unique advantages to do both markets very well.
Li Ping Zhao
Got it. Thanks, Tania, and Jennifer. That's very helpful.
Operator
Ting Song of Goldman Sachs.
Ting Song
Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on all the progress. So, I have two questions. The first one is, you have launched a robotech GXR and robovan W5. 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 VLM in your L4 system. Could you elaborate more on this, on how you could further develop your technology?
Tony Han
So, since these two questions are technology related, so I will cover this question. Thank you for the question.
So I think that there are many exciting developments over the 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. So our next generation AV system will incorporate advanced high dynamic range cameras solid state ladders, as well as auto-grid compute units. So I think that these upgrades will significantly reduce the total bomb cost while enhancing our overall system reliability.
And ensuring a robust and a cost effective solution for autonomous mobility. So next regarding the computer unit, we have established the strategic partnership with the Lenovo to implement an Nvidia drive so platform and could 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 that 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 the models 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, demons 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 mobility. I think the second question is about how do we deploy the end-to-end models and how do we, train and deploy the VLM to our you know ADAS system.
So actually we began developing end-to-end models approximately a year and a half ago. Initially targeting our ADAS system. So the result was remarkable with the end-to-end system demonstrating exceptional, maneuverability and the 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 the growing trend where the AI generated the path were increasingly selected as the 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 larger language models. We have incorporate incorporated vision language models.
Also known as the VRMs. As a foundational frame framework for our end-to-end system. The VRM is pre-trained on a vast array of internet data enabling to encode a broad understanding of world 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 protected a general comprehension of the world but also deep specialized insights into driving dynamics.
So as a result, our autonomous driving system are capable of navigating complex urban environments with the skill and the intuition of an experienced taxi driver.
Ting Song
Thank you. That's really helpful.
Operator
Xinyu, UBS
Xinyu Guo
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 us with boss, our partner, and how do tech and technology wise how do our ADAS initiative, interact or transfer for our L4 technology? This is my second question.
Tony Han
Thank you for the question, Xingyu. So we started to co-develop L2+ a 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 18 months. Our solutions have been deployed on the cherry platform.
So our system is actually designed to simulate the integrate with our L4 system through a unified architecture. It leverage the same data pipeline, two chains, simulation platform, and offboard the infrastructure.
So this one size fits all approach allows engineers to efficiently transition between L2, L3 and L4 development. So it enabled rapid rapid iteration and deployment across different targeted platforms. I also want to mention that this insights and expertise gained from our ADAS development have significantly influenced our Air Force deployment.
For instance, the end-to-end model development for it serves as an alternative for path planning in our ADAS system. Additionally, Our HD mapre solution provides a robust mechanism to verify map accuracy and determine real-time updates during operation.
So the rigorous upgraded standard applied in ADAS have also been instrumental in shaping system requirements defining performance metrics, advancing cutting cutting edges simulation tools, refining our validation framework, and mitigating risk associated with the commercial deployment.
So I think this symbiotic relationship between our ADAS and airport systems not only accelerates the development but also ensures a consistent level of reliability and safety across all levels of autonomy.
So I hope that answers your question.
Xinyu Guo
Thank you very much for the color. My second question is about our R&D expense. Can we have any color on the R&D expense, going forward, in 2025 or, in more near term over the next few quarters?
Jennifer Lee
I'll take the question. So, our R&D expense increased 3.1% in 2024. It's mainly due to increase in personnel related expense resulting from our expansion of the R&D team as well as the cost of upgrading our sensor suit and hardware design.
So we expect our R&D expense to continue to grow at a moderate rates, along with our progress in recruiting top talents to expand our R&D for and also picking up our computer resources throughout the years, we have been very cost cautious and maintained a much lower cash burn rate compared to our global and China peers.
So our total liquidity position is around $910 million US dollars, which is like $6.6 billion. As of 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 all the capital expenditure of R&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, with as we make more commercial results, this, the liquidity position will be even stronger. Yeah, thank you.
Xinyu Guo
Thank you very much for the additional color.
Operator
Jia Qi Huang, SPDBI.
Jia Qi Huang
High management. This is Jia from SPDBI, and I've got two questions. My first question is about our business partnership. Could you please share more about our collaboration with like media, Uber, and other key business partners?
Tony Han
Okay. So, I will take this question. So, first of all, I think if you look at major business patterns of WeRide. They are Uber, Nvidia, Bosch, and the [GD] for a reason, many of them are just like top-notch company and a very impactful company. So, I think it's all because of what we write 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 relationships since the early years, like when we just found [thispo] in Silicon Valley and We have been in touch with Jensen and Janine Hong as an entrepreneur, always proof for the best technology. And at that time, we ride was a startup and those Jensen are the best technology. Today, we still show show the best autonomy driving technology.
So, and the Nvidia become our very early investor and also, we adopt Nvidia's SLC since. Video, error, and then we gradually adopt RNX, RNY, and now, together with Lenovo, we are developing, the newest SLC for both L4 and L3 systems based on them newest soft platform.
So, it's, I think our relationship with Nvidia is very strong and, we will continue to use their best SLCs available and to make to facilitate the development of our L4 system. With Uber, there's a, this is definitely a win-win partnership, as I mentioned in the opening remarks, like we are going to, have at least 50 robotaxi in Abu Dhabi by mean of 2025 and the numbers will be only be growing bigger and bigger and you will expect more collaborations and this is definitely a win-win partnership in mid-east and to our best knowledge.
This is the first time Uber have autonomous driving com company have their robotaxi hooked up in their platform out of US. And we are really excited about providing globaltech 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 global taxi service. So, Uber is definitely a strong partner and luckily and Uber also will only pick the top players and the Uber pick we will have a close partner. We also have very a close partnership with Bosch. Bosch as the number one tier one supplier in the auto industry.
Actually set up a lot of standards in a system.
And.
We are the largest part of Bosch.
In L2+ at a software stack. And the other system co-developed, co-developed by Uri and Bosch demonstrates top performance in the market in China. And you can see there's some lots of, real-time broadcast. There are head-to-head comparison to Tesla FSC and and then the system developed by Visual and then Bosch just so the shows, so the absolute technology superiority.
And also, in future, we will work for the international market together, we are committed to serve a wider base of OEM customers both domestically and internationally with the GDP version, the GXR. We code develop with them. It's really a groundbreaking product and it's a purposely built autonomous driving vehicle for the taxi with lots of features I just mentioned at 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 not my 10 that's not, yeah, please go ahead. You have a second question. .
Jia Qi Huang
Yes. My second question is about our insights on autonomous driving. How do you think about the claim that autonomous driving will take away jobs?
Tony Han
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 replaced human operator. The invention of wash machines replace laundry workers. There are lots of jobs, it's, they are tedious, and they are not so friendly to human being.
And also because of, in many developed societies, aging pro aging problem is a bigger society issue and for aging societies like in Japan and Europe, we are short of human labors. Especially for taxi drivers. So, if.We can replace this kind of jobs with the machines, that's really good. And that doesn't mean like we are killing jobs, we are actually get rid of jobs that can be good for the working class.
We are basically facilitate the shipping of the jobs and there will be more other jobs created like in the related area like data labeling and the data 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 taxi driver, drive a car for 8 hours, sit there.
So we do. Our vision is like we work hard to make all human beings live better. And this is our mission and vision. And so, with this all-technology development, I think we can definitely just replace some tedious, not so well-paid jobs with better jobs. That's the Advance of our human society. And we are so lucky, we are proud to take part in this progress.
Jia Qi Huang
Understood. That's all for my question.
Operator
[Liu Yo] of CLSA.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. It's 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?
Jennifer Lee
I'll take that question. Hili. So, for now we have over 1,000 autonomous vehicles that includes robotaxi, robobus, robovan, and RoboSlippers, all of our products. And as for robotaxi, the total robotaxi flip size is around 400 for now, and with 300 plus, are in China and less than 100, are in the overseas markets, but. expanding quickly, so the daily orders are not very meaningful as we're still scaling given our operation operation area is suspending in different like cities, so we are optimistic about the mid-term 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 within 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 taxi can drive up to 20 hours a day in the near future.
Hi, thank you. I'm glad that you mentioned the other level 4 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?
Jennifer Lee
Okay, I'll take this. So, for other use cases, we generally rep from the vehicle sales of, robobus, robovan, robosweepers, as well as the recurring fee for the ongoing operational and technical support services. So, all the robobuses, robovan, robosweepers, they are all purpose-built products with high level of 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 costs for those use cases as we continue to scale.
Yeah, in terms of the synergies, all the different use cases they do have great synergies with global taxes. So, these are the extension and complement of the global tax business. They provide rich data from a variety of operating scenarios, and for some of the market, other like ours [drupal super] and then business tend to serve as a spearhead when we enter into some of the new markets and and in some markets the stakeholder, they may prefer products with lower speed and in geo fencing deployment at the initial stage for them to understand the autonomous driving.
So this is all the synergies we can see. We're expanding our salesforce to promote those products as well as building a broader distribution network.
Thank you.
Operator
If there are no further questions, I'd like to hand the conference back to our management for closing remarks.
Tony Han
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.
Operator
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.
