Pony.ai and Uber Widen Robotaxi Deal to 2,000+ in Europe TL;DR - Pony.ai and Uber plan to deploy more than 2,000 Level 4 robotaxis across Europe, expanding from Zagreb into four additional European cities. - The three-way model has Pony.ai supplying the autonomy stack, Uber handling booking and payments, and local operators like Croatia's Verne running the fleets. - The release names none of the four additional cities, sets no deployment date for the 2,000 vehicles, and says financing will 'vary by market.' Pony.ai and Uber said they will put more than 2,000 Level 4 robotaxis on the road in Europe, expanding from a single service in Zagreb into four additional cities on the continent, with the Middle East also in the plan, according to a joint release on PR Newswire. The partnership was first announced in May 2025 and keeps the same three-way division of labor: Pony.ai supplies the autonomous driving stack, Uber handles booking and payments, and local operators like Croatia's Verne run the actual fleets. That structure is the substance of the deal. Uber has spent recent months visibly shedding adjacent robotics minority bets, including selling its full Serve Robotics stake earlier this month, while doubling down on a platform-plus-partner posture for autonomy. Rather than build cars or write drivers, Uber gets to route trips through Pony.ai-driven vehicles that Verne, or whichever local operator ends up running each new city, owns and services. Pony.ai, which was founded in 2016 and already runs paid driverless service in China's four tier-one cities, gets Western distribution it could not easily build alone. CEO Dr. James Peng called the expanded agreement "an important new phase" for the partnership. Sarfraz Maredia, Uber's Global Head of Autonomous Mobility & Delivery, framed it as combining "advanced autonomous technology with Uber's hybrid platform, on-the-ground experience,