Zagreb blazes a trail for autonomous driving in Europe
Over the past few months, the city of Zagreb has been taking major steps in the world of autonomous driving, as Uber and its partners Verne and Pony.ai have already launched Level 4 autonomous taxis in the city.
Level 4 vehicles have been rapidly expanding: cars that can drive with no one at the wheel are already a reality in cities across the US and China, and they have now arrived in Europe. In April, Europe’s first commercial robotaxis were launched within key areas of Zagreb, making the city a European test case for commercial autonomous mobility.
Since then, the fleet has logged over 200,000 kilometres of travel with an average passenger rating of 4.7 out of 5. The companies have been testing and learning from customers in real time, and in September, just 5 months after Uber, Pony.ai and Verne moved from a licen,sed operator monitoring on board to fully autonomous taxis operating without supervision.
For riders, the mechanisms are as simple as using the Uber app normally: someone opening the Uber app in Zagreb can request an UberX or Comfort trip as normal; when an autonomous car is available, the app shows details of the vehicle and how to start and finish the ride. There is no separate app to download, and the price sits in the usual Uber flow.
The companies behind the cars
Zagreb’s new autonomous vehicles (AVs) bring together the expertise of three companies, each playing a role in bringing driverless vehicles to the streets of the city.
Founded in 2016, Pony.ai is a leading autonomous vehicle company focused on bringing self-driving technology into large-scale commercial use. It builds the whole driving system itself — the software, the hardware, and the services around it — and works with a range of vehicles. This lets the company make self-driving technology that's cheap to produce at scale and flexible enough to fit anything from trucks to taxis.
Named after the novelist Jules Verne, who imagined journeys enabled by technologies before they existed, Verne is the local piece of the puzzle. As the first company to launch commercial robotaxis in Europe back in April, it works behind the scenes to ensure these services operate safely and smoothly in cities, with a focus on delivering simple and comfortable experiences for passengers.
Uber, which needs no introduction, has made it its mission since its founding in 2009 to create opportunity through movement; it connects riders to the service through the app. Rather than developing its own autonomous vehicles, Uber’s strategy is to act as the platform through which customers access robotaxi services from its partners. By integrating autonomous vehicles into its global mobility network, Uber enables passengers to book rides using the same app they already use today.
As Annie Duvnjak, Global Head of Autonomous Mobility Operations at Uber, puts it, 'By bringing together Pony.ai’s proven autonomous-driving technology, Verne’s operational expertise and Uber’s global platform, we’re making it simple for riders to access autonomous rides through the Uber app.' It was the combined strength of these three companies that brought the autonomous taxis to the streets of Croatia's capital.
The timeline and developments
Back in April, Verne and Pony.ai launched the first test project of these robotaxis on the streets of Zagreb. The initial service zone covered key parts of the city centre, and all vehicles operated autonomously but still had trained AV operators on board during the early phase of the rollout.
It was not until August that Uber joined the project and added Verne’s service to the Uber app, bringing AVs to the already large user base. This phase still used a licensed safety operator behind the wheel as services began to expand across key areas of the city.
A major milestone followed on the 10th September, when the AVs began fully driverless passenger test rides on the roads of Zagreb, officially making it Europe’s first. The pilot operated along a 22km route linking the Verne headquarters, one of the city’s main business districts and the Franjo Tuđman Airport Zagreb, with plans to further expand in the coming months.
This service uses Pony.ai’s seventh-generation Robotaxi platform, featuring Level 4 autonomous driving technology with advanced sensors and extensive built-in safety features to comply with both Croatian and Uber’s own security measures. While this is the platform's first use in Europe, the company already runs fully driverless commercial services in four Chinese cities and has logged over 40 million kilometres in fully driverless mode worldwide.
But Uber is careful to frame these AVs as an additional service rather than a replacement one. It expects self-driving cars to coexist with human drivers for the foreseeable future, as location restrictions lead many trips to still require a person behind the wheel.
Zagreb as a blueprint
For all three partners — and for the world of autonomous vehicles — Zagreb is more than just a launch market. It is proof that robotaxis and AV operations work, and that they can be scaled across Europe.
Uber has described Zagreb as an important first step in its ambition to bring autonomous vehicles to millions of riders. As Duvnjak stated, Zagreb is helping the company build ‘the world's largest platform for AV deployment.’ The three companies also say that Zagreb will serve as a model for future developments, with plans to expand into additional European cities. While no specific locations have been announced, further details on those launches are expected later this year.
For Verne, the project is also a chance to export operational expertise developed in Croatia. The company believes the experience gained through day-to-day operations in Zagreb will help support future expansion into other European markets.
Dr James Peng, Founder and CEO of Pony.ai, said the progress made in Zagreb provides a strong foundation for expanding fully driverless mobility across Europe and other international markets. Pony.ai's international ambitions are significant: the company says its overseas deployment pipeline now exceeds 4,000 robotaxis lined up for markets outside China, including more than 2,000 in Europe with Uber. Its goal is a global fleet of over 3,500 by the end of 2026.
The race to deploy AV taxi services is accelerating elsewhere in Europe too. WeRide has announced plans for a robotaxi service in Denmark, while Finnish startup Bliq has secured approval to operate driverless vehicles in Finland, highlighting growing competition in the region's autonomous mobility market.
