With help from Uber and the Chinese company Pony.ai, Croatia’s Verne has been running a robotaxi service in the capital Zagreb since spring 2026.
Marko Perkov | AFP | Getty Images
BEIJING — US ride-hailing giant Uber is expanding global robotaxi coverage by operators Pony eye.
The companies announced Friday that they plan to deploy 2,000 Pony.ai self-driving taxis across Europe and expand their robotaxi partnership to the Middle East.
In late March, Uber and Pony.ai launched a commercial robo-taxi service in Croatia’s capital Zagreb. They claim this is a first in Europe.
The partnership, announced Friday, will bring robotaxis to four other European cities. The companies did not disclose the name of the city or the exact time period.
It is important to have a sufficient number of vehicles for commercialization. The more vehicles available, the more data can be collected to prove safety to regulators and increase operational efficiency. Increased availability means more people will use your service.
alphabetRobotaxis operator Waymo is a global leader with a fleet of approximately 5,000 vehicles, primarily in the United States. The company is conducting test drives in London and reportedly set up new entities in the EU’s four major economies in June.
Waymo also has plans in place in Tokyo and is working with officials around the world to “lay the foundation for a global operation,” it said in a statement to CNBC.
Meanwhile, Chinese rivals Baidu Apollo Go and Willide are stepping up plans and tests to operate self-driving vehicles in Europe.
Uber is included in many of their plans.
In June, WeRide and Uber announced plans to launch Spain’s first robotaxi taxi pilot in Madrid later this year. The two companies also collaborate in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Uber announced Thursday that its Japanese subsidiary has signed a deal with a local taxi operator to manage day-to-day vehicle operations as it pilots robotaxis in Tokyo later this year.
Uber’s goal is to “become the world’s leading commercialization platform for autonomous vehicles,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said earlier this month, according to a FactSet transcript of the company’s earnings call.
Part of that strategy is to collect a “superset of data” that can be shared with partners to accelerate the development of self-driving cars, he said.
Pony.ai is scheduled to report quarterly results on Tuesday.
—CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
