EVwire brief: Verne and Pony.ai have started carrying invited passengers in fully driverless robotaxis on public roads in Zagreb, a European first.
There is no safety operator in the vehicle. Pony.ai's self-driving stack handles all driving on a 22-kilometer (13.7-mile) route linking Verne's headquarters and a central business district with Franjo Tuđman Airport, while Verne's remote team monitors the vehicles. The company aims to increase the driverless area to the whole Zagreb operations.
The milestone lands roughly five months after Verne switched on Europe's first paid robotaxi service in the same city. The fleet has since logged more than 200,000 autonomous kilometers (~124,000 miles).
Verne shared a video announcing the service, which we’ve posted here:
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Pony.ai also posted its own video of the program:
Until now, every Verne ride in Zagreb has had a trained safety operator sitting up front. These new test rides ditch that person entirely. Invited passengers get into a cabin where the front passenger seat has been ripped out and replaced with a large display, a touchscreen console for managing the ride, and extra storage and charging spots.
After launching first commercial service in Europe, we are now going driverless.
First limited and then expanding. Also great experience of our custom interior layout - I’ve tried many AVs in the world and this is different, feels both exciting and natural step in the evolution of a robotaxi.
A route of 22 kilometers might not sound like much, but those are 22 fully driverless kilometers.
Pony.ai CEO James Peng called the Zagreb deployment "an important step in Pony.ai's global expansion, bringing technology proven through commercial operations in China into real-world deployment in Europe."
Verne plans to expand the driverless routes over the coming months until they cover the company's full operating area in Zagreb. The test rides are running under Croatian regulations for autonomous vehicle prototype testing on public roads.
Verne and Pony.ai’s unmanned robotaxis feature a modified interior.
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Context:
Verne launched Europe's first commercial robotaxi service in Zagreb on April, starting with nine Pony.ai-equipped Arcfox Alpha T5 vehicles at a promotional rate of €1.99 per ride. Customers have given the service an average 4.7-out-of-5 rating, and the operating zone now spans more than 100 square kilometers (38.6 square miles).
A fleet of Verne robotaxis.
The Uber/Verne/Pony.ai partnership, announced in March, splits the work three ways: Pony.ai supplies the self-driving tech, Verne runs the service on the ground, and Uber plugs it into its ride-hailing platform. Uber also plans to invest in Verne. Together, the three companies are targeting a fleet of thousands of robotaxis across Europe.
Long-term, Verne is expected to roll out its custom two-seat Robotaxi. Here’s a prototype of the vehicle:
Prototypes of Verne’s custom two-seat robotaxi.
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