Pony.ai and Uber Widen Robotaxi Deal to 2,000+ in Europe

Pony.ai and Uber said they will put more than 2,000 Level 4 robotaxis on the road in Europe, expanding from a single service in Zagreb into four additional cities on the continent, with the Middle East also in the plan, according to a joint release on PR Newswire. The partnership was first announced in May 2025 and keeps the same three-way division of labor: Pony.ai supplies the autonomous driving stack, Uber handles booking and payments, and local operators like Croatia's Verne run the actual fleets.

That structure is the substance of the deal. Uber has spent recent months visibly shedding adjacent robotics minority bets, including selling its full Serve Robotics stake earlier this month, while doubling down on a platform-plus-partner posture for autonomy. Rather than build cars or write drivers, Uber gets to route trips through Pony.ai-driven vehicles that Verne, or whichever local operator ends up running each new city, owns and services. Pony.ai, which was founded in 2016 and already runs paid driverless service in China's four tier-one cities, gets Western distribution it could not easily build alone.

CEO Dr. James Peng called the expanded agreement "an important new phase" for the partnership. Sarfraz Maredia, Uber's Global Head of Autonomous Mobility & Delivery, framed it as combining "advanced autonomous technology with Uber's hybrid platform, on-the-ground experience, and operational excellence." The Zagreb service, described as Europe's first commercial robotaxi operation, is set to launch in 2026.

Beyond that, the release is thin. It names none of the four additional European cities. It gives no date by which the 2,000 vehicles will actually be running. And it flags only that vehicle ownership and financing will "vary by market," which leaves unresolved who is writing the checks for a fleet of that size. European autonomous vehicle regulation is not one regime but many national ones, so which four cities appear on the list will effectively be dictated by whichever regulators move first. For contrast, Waymo just got clearance for paid rides across 18 California counties from a single regulator.

If this lands, the template becomes the story. It shows how a Chinese AV builder can reach European streets without needing to spin up a European operation from scratch, and it gives Uber a scalable autonomous supply that does not depend on it owning the technology. The next real datapoint is which four cities show up on the list.