InDrive plans 2027 robotaxi tests in Kazakhstan with Pony.ai and Nvidia

InDrive, the ride-hailing app built on haggling over fares, is bringing robotaxis into the mix. The company plans to start testing autonomous vehicles in Kazakhstan in 2027, working with Pony.ai and Nvidia. The pilot city is Astana, the Kazakh capital. InDrive CTO Yuri Misnik told TechCrunch that testing will begin in the first half of 2027. Who brings what to the table The partnership splits the work three ways. Pony.ai supplies the vehicles, inDrive supplies the riders, and Nvidia supplies the computing underneath. Pony.ai’s seventh-generation autonomous vehicles will be built into the existing inDrive app. A rider in Astana won’t need to download anything new to hail a car with nobody behind the wheel. Nvidia’s role sits under the hood. The vehicles will run on Nvidia’s Hyperion platform, which pairs the sensor suite with onboard computing, along with its Halos safety system. Pony.ai already runs commercial robotaxi services in China and has been working to expand beyond its home market. Why Kazakhstan, and why now InDrive has operated in Kazakhstan since its founding in 2014, giving it a long-standing user base there. Its business model differs from most ride-hailing platforms....