High-profile Chinese autonomous driving tech startups are getting ready to go public, tempted by special purpose acquisition companies and heady valuations on Wall Street and in China’s own booming domestic stock markets.
Autonomous trucking startups Plus and TuSimple, as well as lidar sensor maker Hesai Technology, are considering different ways of going public in either the U.S. or China, according to people familiar with the discussions. The companies hope that their stock listings will attract investors following the success of recent listings by Chinese makers of electric vehicles. But investing in self-driving vehicle developers requires a greater leap of faith than investing in EVs, given that fully autonomous driving software is far from perfected or commercially ready.
