Pony.ai and Uber are expanding their strategic partnership to deploy more than 2,000 Pony.ai robotaxis across Europe, the companies announced on August 13, 2026, growing a collaboration that began with a single commercial service in Zagreb into a multi-city deployment commitment spanning more than 2,000 robotaxis.
Under the expanded agreement, the partnership moves beyond Zagreb (where a commercial robotaxi service launched in April 2026 and is set to arrive on the Uber platform) to four additional, still-unnamed European cities, with further deployment planned for the Middle East. The companies said rollout details will be announced in phases.
The expansion is structured around what Pony.ai calls its joint-deployment model, which splits the three functions a scaled robotaxi service needs across specialized partners: Level 4 autonomous driving technology, a mobility platform with riders on it, and day-to-day fleet operations. Pony.ai supplies the self-driving system and operational expertise from its existing large-scale deployments; Uber provides booking, payment, and customer service through its platform; and fleet operations in each market may be run by established local partners, as Croatian mobility company Verne does in Zagreb. Vehicle funding and ownership can sit with different partners depending on the market, a structure designed to keep the capital burden off any single balance sheet.
“This expanded agreement marks an important new phase in the partnership between Pony.ai and Uber,” said Dr. James Peng, Founder and CEO of Pony.ai. “By combining Pony.ai’s proven autonomous driving technology and operational know-how with Uber’s global mobility platform and extensive market reach, we aim to build sustained commercial operations at scale across Europe and beyond.”
“The next chapter for autonomous mobility is about moving from individual launches to repeatable commercial scale,” said Sarfraz Maredia, Global Head of Autonomous Mobility & Delivery at Uber.
How the Partnership Got Here
The collaboration dates to May 2025, when the two companies first announced plans to put Pony.ai robotaxis on the Uber platform in international markets, beginning in the Middle East with safety operators aboard during the initial pilot phase.
In March 2026, the partnership took concrete shape in Europe: Pony.ai, Uber, and Verne announced a three-way deal to launch the continent’s first commercial robotaxi service in Zagreb, with Verne owning and operating the fleet and Uber committing to invest in the Croatian company. On-road testing of Pony.ai’s seventh-generation autonomous driving system, deployed on the Arcfox Alpha T5 robotaxi developed with Chinese automaker BAIC, was already underway at the announcement.
That service went live on April 8, 2026, with members of the public booking paid rides through the Verne app across an initial zone of roughly 90 square kilometers covering central Zagreb and the city’s airport, operating daily from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Integration into the Uber app was slated to follow (the August expansion announcement confirms it is still coming), and Zagreb made Verne’s operation the first fare-charging commercial robotaxi service in Europe.
What Pony.ai Brings to the Fleet
Pony.ai’s European pitch rests on its operating record in China, where it runs paid, fully driverless robotaxi services in the country’s four tier-one cities and reports city-wide breakeven unit economics in multiple markets. Founded in 2016 and listed on both NASDAQ and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the Guangzhou-based company has built its expansion around the Gen-7 system it describes as enabling mass production of robotaxis at lower cost. As of earlier in 2026, the company was targeting a fleet of 3,000 vehicles by year-end, a goal the 2,000-plus European commitment with Uber would substantially extend.
For Uber, the Pony.ai expansion is one thread in a deliberately diversified autonomy strategy. Rather than developing self-driving technology in-house, Uber has assembled a roster of autonomous partners: a roster whose fleet-financing demands have drawn their own capital, as when fleet operator Moove raised a $250 million Series C at a $2.1 billion valuation to scale the kind of robotaxi fleet infrastructure these deployments depend on. The model mirrors what has played out in the US market, where established operators have moved from waitlists to open commercial service city by city — the pattern Waymo followed in Dallas — and it keeps Uber’s role consistent: customer access, not vehicles.
What Comes Next in Europe
The named commitments now on the table are Zagreb’s expansion onto the Uber platform and four additional European cities, which the companies say will be identified as the rollout proceeds in phases. Middle East deployments are also part of the expanded plan, extending a region the partnership has targeted since its first announcement. Each new market will require local regulatory clearance — in Zagreb, Verne led market readiness and European regulatory approval, and the expanded agreement keeps the option of established local fleet partners selected market by market.
If the four-city rollout proceeds on the Zagreb template, the sequence to watch is the one the Croatian capital established: public-road validation first, then a fare-charging launch with a named local operator, then platform integration. Pony.ai and Uber are now betting that sequence can be repeated at a pace that turns a single 90-square-kilometer service zone into a continental network of more than 2,000 vehicles.
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