Pony.ai, Verne Begin Fully Driverless Robotaxi Tests in Croatia
aiinsider ·
Pony.ai and Verne have started fully driverless robotaxi test rides with passengers on public roads in Zagreb, Croatia, removing the onboard safety operator from a service that launched earlier this year. The tests use a 22-kilometer route connecting Verne’s headquarters and a major Zagreb business district with Franjo Tuđman Airport Zagreb, and the companies plan to expand the driverless routes over the next several months toward covering the service’s full operating area in the capital. Pony.ai described the passenger tests as a European first, arriving just over five months after Pony.ai, Verne and Uber announced a partnership to launch a commercial robotaxi service in Europe. Under that model, Pony.ai provides autonomous driving technology, Verne operates the service and manages local deployment, and Uber connects riders through its platform. Since Verne launched the service in early April, its fleet has traveled more than 200,000 kilometers, completed several thousand customer rides and earned an average passenger rating of 4.7 out of 5, with earlier operations including an autonomous-vehicle operator inside the vehicle. The Zagreb tests, conducted under Croatian regulations and approvals, use Pony.ai’s seventh-generation robotaxi with its Level 4 autonomous-driving system, an Nvidia DRIVE AGX-based controller running the safety-certified DriveOS, 360-degree sensor coverage and redundant systems. Pony.ai said the architecture has been used in fully driverless commercial operations in four major Chinese cities, and that its autonomous vehicles have accumulated more than 100 million kilometers worldwide, including over 40 million without a driver onboard. The Croatia deployment is part of Pony.ai’s strategy to expand outside China through partnerships, with an overseas deployment pipeline exceeding 4,000 robotaxis, including plans with Uber for more than 2,000 vehicles across Europe, and a target of more than 3,500 robotaxis globally by the end of 2026.
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