EVwire brief: Verne, the Rimac-founded robotaxi startup that just last week announced a partnership to launch robotaxis in Croatia and beyond with Pony AI and Uber (bespoke robotaxi still coming), just shared an important milestone through their CEO: the receipt for the first-ever paid robotaxi ride in Europe.
Granted, we don’t know if this was just shared for testing purposes or as a part of official service, which we know is in validation, so take it with a grain of salt:
Source: Marko Pejković, CEO and co-founder of Verne
We can see the app shows the personalized name, time & price, along with the ride summary. Note that the pricing is there for test purposes as confirmed by Marko in the comments.
As we learned in the recent announcement of partnership of Uber & Verne & PonyAI, they will run the service on both Uber and Verne app, the latter of which is seen above.
In case you missed it, here are the details of the partnership, starting with the teaser video from the first rides:
The vehicle used is Pony AI equipped electric Arcfox Alpha T5 Robotaxi (the one pictured above, produced by BAIC). Note that this is not Verne’s own robotaxi.
It will be deployed in both Uber and Verne’s own networks.
Uber “intends” to invest in Verne as part of the strategic partnership.
In Zagreb, Croatia, deployment is “already underway including public-road validation”, before expanding to additional cities in Europe and beyond.
Verne will act as fleet owner and service operator.
Verne will lead the process of ensuring market readiness and obtaining European regulatory approval for these launches.
Partners plan to scale to a fleet of thousands of robotaxis over the next few years.
Verne robotaxi with PonyAI vehicle
Source: CEO of Verne on LinkedIn
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