Europe's first fare-charging robotaxi launched this week. In Zagreb.
But not with a European vehicle or European software.
👋 Welcome back everyone,
Another packed week in the autonomous vehicle space. Waymo keeps expanding, Uber keeps expanding, and Europe just got its first fare-charging robotaxi service. Whether that last one is cause for celebration or concern depends on how you look at it.
We have a lot to cover, let’s dive in.
Let’s dive in!
⏱️ ~3000 words, 13 minute read
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WAYMO: NASHVILLE LAUNCH, POTHOLE TRACKING, AND A NYC SETBACK
No week without Waymo announcements. This week delivered three stories worth unpacking.
Waymo goes live in Nashville
Waymo opened its robotaxi service in Nashville on April 7, making it the 11th US city where the public can hail a Waymo. The initial service area covers approximately 60 square miles, spanning Broadway, 12 South, Midtown, and East Nashville. The company is also testing at Nashville International Airport with plans to serve travelers there soon.
Source: Waymo
The rollout follows Waymo’s familiar playbook: testing with safety drivers first (which began in February), then inviting riders on a rolling basis to scale gradually. The fleet currently consists of “dozens of vehicles,” as Waymo put it.
What makes Nashville strategically interesting is that this is Waymo’s first market with Lyft as fleet management partner. And the setup is fundamentally different from how Waymo works with Uber.
To understand the differences: in Atlanta and Austin, Waymo rides are available exclusively through the Uber app. There is no Waymo One app in those markets. Uber also handles fleet management there, including vehicle cleaning, repair, and depot operations. In Phoenix, where the Uber-Waymo partnership is older, there are literally two separate fleets: one for the Waymo One app and one for the Uber app.
In Nashville, Waymo will operate a single fleet shared across both the Waymo One app and (later) the Lyft app. Lyft's role here goes beyond just demand aggregation. Through its FlexDrive subsidiary, Lyft will handle charging, cleaning, maintenance, and depot operations for the Waymo fleet.
It is worth noting that Uber is also experimenting with fleet management across its partner ecosystem. Through its newly launched Uber Autonomous Solutions unit, the company is positioning itself as a full-service platform for AV partners, offering fleet management, remote assistance, and insurance.
This is a critical test for the Lyft autonomy thesis. If FlexDrive proves it can run depot operations more efficiently than Waymo's own setup or third-party alternatives, it becomes a genuine competitive advantage. FlexDrive could become Lyft's secret weapon in the platform war, not through demand generation but through operational excellence on the supply side.
Waymo tracks potholes with Waze
In a smaller but clever move, Waymo announced a pilot program to share pothole data with city officials, in partnership with Google’s Waze. Municipal officials in multiple cities where Waymo operates had actually reached out to the company first, assuming it tracked road conditions. Turns out it does.
Waymo’s vehicles are constantly collecting detailed sensor data on road surfaces, lane markings, and infrastructure conditions. Instead of cities relying on citizen complaints or periodic inspections, they can get near real-time data on where maintenance is needed.
This is a smart goodwill play. While regulatory battles play out in states like New York, Waymo is positioning its vehicles as infrastructure assets, not just commercial services. If your fleet helps cities fix potholes faster, it becomes harder to argue the cars do not belong on the road.
NYC: no more testing for Waymo
But this week was not all positive for Waymo. In New York City, the company’s autonomous testing permits expired on March 31, and the city has not renewed them. Waymo had been operating eight vehicles with safety drivers behind the wheel in parts of Brooklyn and south of 112th Street in Manhattan since last year. The company did not report a single collision during the entire pilot.
Despite that track record, city officials cited public safety concerns and the potential impact on New York’s large taxi workforce. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who succeeded Eric Adams, has deep ties to the taxi driver community. He participated in a 15-day hunger strike in 2021 alongside the New York Taxi Workers Alliance to push for medallion debt relief. At the state level, Governor Kathy Hochul withdrew a proposal in February that would have allowed limited commercial robotaxi deployment outside NYC after labor unions and rideshare drivers pushed back hard.
The result: Waymo cannot even test with a safety driver in New York anymore. It can, however, still drive manually to collect mapping and sensor data. And it is doing exactly that. Waymo vehicles have been spotted on the streets as recently as April 9. The company is clearly signaling that it is not leaving New York.
Waymo was not the only company with a busy week. Uber and its partners delivered two very different stories.
MOIA and Uber begin on-road testing in LA
MOIA America, Volkswagen’s autonomous mobility subsidiary, and Uber announced the start of on-road validation testing of autonomous ID. Buzz vehicles in Los Angeles. This is the final step before commercial rides, which are expected to launch on the Uber platform in late 2026.
Some details on the deployment: During the testing phase, all vehicles will have human safety operators on board. MOIA plans to scale to more than 100 autonomous ID. Buzz vehicles during the testing phase, with a goal of over 500 vehicles in LA by Q3 2027 and more than 1,000 vehicles across additional US cities after that. Driverless operations are targeted for 2027. MOIA still needs to secure several permits for fare-charging service, including a CPUC autonomous vehicle deployment permit.
As a German, I am personally excited to see MOIA, a Volkswagen company, as an active player in the US autonomous mobility space. Speaking of MOIA: this coming Wednesday, our episode with MOIA goes live on Autonomy Insiders. Subscribe to the podcast so you do not miss it.
AVride kills a duck in Austin
On the less celebratory end of the news spectrum: AVride made headlines for the wrong reasons this week. An AVride autonomous vehicle in Austin hit and killed a mother duck that was nesting outside a local Italian restaurant in the Mueller neighborhood. A witness reported the vehicle “did not slow down or hesitate at all.” The incident triggered significant outrage among local residents, who have the duck’s eggs in an incubator now.
AVride confirmed the vehicle was in autonomous mode at the time. The company has since adjusted its area of operations, excluding certain streets around the lake where the incident occurred. AVride said it did not find evidence to support claims of a stop sign violation but is evaluating technology improvements to avoid similar situations.
Yes, it was a duck, not a person. But dismissing this would be a mistake. It is a reminder that public perception matters enormously. Every negative headline, no matter how small, gives ammunition to opponents of the technology. AVride’s quick operational adjustment was the right response. The lesson for the entire industry: edge cases are not just technical problems. They are PR problems.
What the week tells us
What does this week tell us about the state of the industry? Waymo continues to execute its market-by-market expansion strategy with almost industrial consistency. Uber's partner ecosystem keeps growing, with MOIA joining the lineup alongside Waymo, WeRide, AVride, and others. The regulatory picture remains fragmented, with Nashville welcoming autonomous vehicles while New York shuts the door. And even small incidents like a duck in Austin remind us that social license to operate is earned in every neighborhood, not just in regulatory offices.
🔗 TechCrunch / TechCrunch (2) / TechCrunch (3) / TechCrunch (4) / The City NYC / Streetsblog NYC / Uber Investor Relations / Road to Autonomy
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CHINA CORNER: PONY.AI THE WINNER OF THE WEEK
This week’s China Corner belongs to Pony.ai, which delivered three announcements in rapid succession.
Pony AI in Singapore: final phase before public service
Pony.ai received regulatory approval to begin by-invite autonomous rides in Singapore, in collaboration with local transport operator ComfortDelGro. The service operates on a 12-kilometer route in north-east Punggol, connecting Punggol Northshore and Waterway Sunrise to key amenities including Oasis Terraces and Punggol Coast Mall. The route takes about 55 minutes to complete and saves residents up to 15 minutes compared to current public transport options.
WeRide and Grab officially launched Singapore's first autonomous public ride service as we covered last week, running two full shuttle routes plus a 20-minute mini route in Punggol on weekdays from 9:30 to 17:30. Those rides are currently free until mid-2026, when commercial pricing kicks in. 14 Grab driver-partners have been trained as safety operators through GrabAcademy.
So we now have two Chinese AV companies operating in the same Singapore district: WeRide with Grab offering free rides to build ridership, and Pony.ai with ComfortDelGro on an invite-only basis working toward paid service. The race for Singapore's robotaxi market is getting very real.
PonyWorld 2.0: a self-improving world model
Pony.ai also launched PonyWorld 2.0, an upgrade to its proprietary world model. The key innovation is what the company calls a “self-diagnosis” capability: the system can review its own decisions, compare intent with outcomes, and identify scenarios where additional learning is needed. It then generates targeted data-collection tasks for human teams. Since 2020, Pony.ai has been developing PonyWorld not just as a simulation tool but as a full reinforcement learning training system spanning cloud-side training and vehicle-side deployment. The 2.0 version is already being applied across its L4 driverless fleet.
Zagreb: Europe's first fare-charging robotaxi service
But the most significant Pony.ai news this week came from Europe.
Verne, Pony.ai, and Uber launched the first commercial, fare-charging robotaxi service on the European continent, in Zagreb, Croatia.
Source: EVWIRE
The details: rides cost a fixed €1.99, the service operates daily from 7:00 to 21:00, and each vehicle accommodates up to two passengers. The initial service area covers roughly 90 km², including key parts of the Croatian capital and the airport.
Source: Verne
Rides can be booked through the Verne app, and will shortly be available on the Uber platform as well. The vehicles are Arcfox Alpha T5 robotaxis equipped with Pony.ai’s seventh-generation autonomous driving system. Trained safety operators are on board during this early phase.
In the triangle of partners, the roles break down as follows: Verne operates the service and holds the regulatory relationships in Europe. Pony.ai provides the autonomous driving software and the vehicle platform. Uber provides the additional ride-hailing marketplace.
Verne has already begun permit discussions with 11 cities across the EU, UK, and the Middle East, with more than 30 additional cities under consideration.
The speed of this launch, just weeks after the partnership was announced on March 26, and the emergence of Croatia as first mover may seem unexpected. But there is a backstory here that might explain a lot.
The backstory: a deadline-driven partnership?
Verne, originally known as Project 3 Mobility, started with a bold vision: a purpose-built European Level 5 autonomous vehicle, a two-seater robotaxi with Mobileye virtual driver. The company secured €179.5 million in EU grants to build this vision.
Then reality showed up. The custom vehicle was not ready. At the big 2024 reveal, the car froze on stage. And now? The vehicle in service is the Arcfox Alpha T5, built by BAIC, a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
Here is where it gets really interesting. Verne's EU Recovery Fund grant came with a hard deadline: March 31, 2026. Roughly €90 million had already been disbursed. Miss the milestones, and the money could be clawed back. The partnership with Pony.ai and Uber was announced on March 26, five days before the deadline.
On March 30, one day before the deadline expired, Verne's posted a video of the CEO on LinkedIn showing himself taking the first paid ride, explicitly emphasizing that he was in the vehicle and paying for the service.
Source: LinkedIN
He was also expressing how proud he is of this first-ever commercial robotaxi ride in Europe happening in Zagreb, Croatia, and shared the receipt of the ride, which documents that the ride took place on the 30th March:
Source: EVWIRE
According to Balkan Green Energy News reporting, the deadline has since been extended to August 31.
This is speculative, but from the outside, this constellation looks like a deal born from deadline pressure rather than long-term strategic planning. A deadline closing in, so you bring in Pony.ai with software and a vehicle that are actually ready, and Uber for platform experience. That is pragmatic.
My take: I think it is genuinely positive that Europe now has a fare-charging autonomous ride service, even with a safety driver on board. But for many, there will be a bitter aftertaste. European taxpayer money, allocated to build a homegrown European robotaxi, is now funding Chinese vehicles and Chinese autonomous driving software operating on an American ride-hailing platform. That is not what the EU grant was designed for.
For Verne, this is probably a good sign in the short term. The company survives and has a path forward, even if it looks nothing like the original pitch. But the biggest winner here is arguably Pony.ai. They can now officially claim to have launched the first fare-charging autonomous ride service in Europe. In the intense race with WeRide and Baidu, both of whom are expanding aggressively in international markets, that is a narrative Pony.ai can leverage powerfully for regulatory discussions, investor relations, and future partnerships across the continent.
And in Singapore, we are watching a direct proxy war between Pony.ai and WeRide play out in the same district, with different local partners and different commercialization strategies. That competition is good for the market, and it mirrors what we see these two companies doing globally.
🔗 CnEVPost / PR Newswire / ZagDaily / Uber Investor Relations / Balkan Green Energy News / EVWIRE / RTA / Verne / LinkedIN
💡 Quick Takes
ATOMS ACQUIRES PRONTO FOR MINING AUTONOMY
Physical AI company Atoms acquired Pronto, an autonomous driving technology company, to accelerate deployment of autonomous vehicles in mining operations. Pronto becomes the core technology engine of Atoms Mining, one of three divisions within the company dedicated to digitising the physical world through purpose-built, intelligent machines.
MARIANA MINERALS TAPS PRONTO TO AUTOMATE COPPER MINE
In a related development, Mariana Minerals announced it is working with Pronto to automate operations at a copper mine. Mining is one of the most promising near-term markets for autonomous vehicles: fixed routes, no pedestrians, high labor costs, and dangerous conditions for human operators.
KODIAK EXPANDS DRIVERLESS TRUCKING BEYOND THE SUN BELT
Kodiak Robotics is expanding its driverless trucking operations into Ohio and Indiana, moving beyond its Sun Belt testing corridor. This expansion signals growing confidence in operating autonomous trucks in less favorable weather conditions and more complex road networks. The move also extends Kodiak’s commercial reach into key freight corridors in the Midwest.
ITALIAN STARTUP NIULINX RAISES €38 MILLION
NiuLinx, an Italian autonomous driving startup, raised €38 million. European AV startups continue to attract capital, albeit at much smaller rounds than their US or Chinese counterparts. Still worth watching as European regulatory frameworks for autonomous vehicles take shape.
FUSION PROCESSING TESTS AUTONOMOUS BUSES AT UK AIRPORTS
Fusion Processing is bringing autonomous bus expertise to UK airports with a government-backed study for airside staff transport. Airports are interesting testing grounds for autonomy: controlled environments, predictable routes, and clear commercial demand.
🔗 Zenzic
NHTSA ENDS PROBE INTO TESLA REMOTE DRIVING FEATURE
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed its investigation into Tesla’s remote driving feature after the company implemented software updates. One less regulatory overhang for Tesla, though the bigger questions around unsupervised FSD and the Austin robotaxi deployment timeline remain open.
🔗 CNBC
🎧 Autonomy Insiders
In Episode 5 of Autonomy Insiders, I sat down with Martin Neubauer, Head of Autonomous Mobility at PostAuto AG, to unpack how Switzerland's largest public transport operator is deploying autonomous vehicles in rural and alpine regions where traditional bus services are becoming unsustainable and why PostAuto chose Baidu Apollo as its autonomous driving partner.
📚 Worth Reading/Listening
Harry Campbell: DoorDash’s Autonomous Delivery Strategy with Ashu Rege
🔗 The Driverless Digest
Phil Koopman & Junko Yoshida: Video Podcast: Accountability of Remote Assistants
🔗 Phil & Junko on AV Safety
📊 Weekly Performance
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#1 in Europe! Congratulations Zagreb 🎉
I cannot wait for this to work everywhere.