Pony.ai and Uber plan 2,000+ robotaxis across five European cities

Pony.ai and Uber expanded their strategic partnership to deploy more than 2,000 Pony.ai robotaxis across Europe. The rollout grows from Zagreb — where the pair launched Europe's first commercial robotaxi service this year with Croatian mobility company Verne as local fleet owner and operator, now coming to the Uber platform — to four additional European cities, announced in phases, plus planned Middle East deployments. The tie-up dates to May 2025, when the companies first agreed to put Pony.ai vehicles on Uber's platform in international markets. The model splits the work three ways: Pony.ai supplies the L4 driver, Uber the demand, and a local partner the fleet operations.

Why it matters

2,000 vehicles is a fleet-scale commitment in a region where every other operator is running dozens. The reason Pony.ai can promise it is the asset-light structure: it does not buy the cars or hire the depot staff, so European expansion costs it software and support rather than balance sheet — the opposite of Waymo's model, which owns its fleets and opens cities one at a time. That is also the risk. Quality of service now depends on local operators Pony.ai does not control, in five regulatory regimes that have not yet been named, and a Chinese AV company scaling across Europe invites exactly the political scrutiny that Chinese humanoid makers are already facing in the US. It is a plan with a number attached, not a deployment: only Zagreb is running today.

What to watch

Which four cities are named and on what timeline, whether any European regulator objects to a Chinese-developed driver, and whether Zagreb's fleet size grows enough to test the operating model.