Uber Opens Europe's First App-Booked Robotaxi Service in Zagreb with Pony.ai and Verne

UBER launched its first autonomous rides in Europe on August 19, 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia, making it the first market on the continent where riders can book a self-driving car directly through the Uber app. Service covers key areas of the city including the centre, with coverage set to widen over time.

The launch is a three-way structure rather than an Uber deployment. PONY supplies the autonomous driving technology, Verne handles fleet management and operations, and Uber contributes the booking layer and rider demand. One qualifier matters for reading the milestone accurately: every autonomous vehicle on Zagreb's streets currently carries a licensed safety operator in the seat. Full driverless operation is the stated goal, but regulatory approval and operational maturity keep the human in place for now.

Croatia is an unusual but deliberate first market. It is an EU member, so the regulatory groundwork is portable across the bloc, while Zagreb is small and lightly congested enough to make early operations tractable. Verne is locally rooted, which shortens the path through municipal approvals compared with launching in a major Western European capital first.

The ambition behind the pilot is considerably larger than one city. The expanded Uber, Pony.ai and Verne partnership announced earlier in August targets deployment of more than 2,000 Pony.ai robotaxis across five major European cities, with Middle Eastern markets also in scope. Zagreb is the template that has to work before that number becomes credible.

What to watch: how quickly safety operators are removed, expansion of the Zagreb service area, which of the five target European cities is announced next, and whether EU-level autonomous vehicle rules keep pace with the deployment schedule.

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