Pony.ai said on Sunday that it has received permission to charge a fee for offering autonomous ride-hailing services to the public in parts of the southern city of Guangzhou. Starting May, a total of 100 of the firm’s self-driving vehicles will be allowed to operate commercially on public roads in Guangzhou’s Nansha district between 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m., as long as there is a human safety driver behind the wheel. The Toyota-backed company launched a pilot ride-hailing app for free among selected users in the city in December 2018, and claimed that it had provided 700,000 rides in Guangzhou and Beijing as of mid-April this year. [Pony.ai release]