Robotaxi War Heats Up: Verne, Uber and Pony.ai Target Europe
A little-known Croatian startup called Verne is stepping into the global robotaxi race with heavyweight allies. In a move that signals Europe's autonomous vehicle moment may finally be arriving, Verne has joined forces with Uber and Chinese self-driving company Pony.ai to launch a commercial robotaxi service. The first city on the map is Zagreb, Croatia, and the ambitions stretch far beyond it.
 |
| Credit: Uber / Rimac |
What Is Verne and Why Should You Care
Most people in the United States have never heard of Verne. But the startup, born inside the Rimac Group ecosystem in Croatia, has been quietly building toward this moment since 2019. It started as an internal project called Project 3 Mobility before officially launching in July 2024 with 100 million euros in funding. Now it is positioning itself as Europe's answer to Waymo and Tesla's robotaxi push, with a very different operational model backing it up.
Verne is the brainchild of Mate Rimac, the Croatian entrepreneur best known for founding Rimac Group, which also owns the Bugatti Rimac hypercar brand. Rimac holds a 23 percent stake in the group. What makes his robotaxi vision unusual is the deliberate contrast it creates with his luxury EV roots: Verne's purpose-built vehicles are compact two-seaters designed for urban mobility, not speed records or million-dollar price tags.
The Strategic Partnership That Changes Everything
The three-way deal between Verne, Uber, and Pony.ai is not a casual collaboration. Each partner brings something the others cannot easily replicate. Pony.ai, the Chinese autonomous driving company, is supplying the self-driving system and a purpose-built robotaxi called the Arcfox Alpha T5, developed in partnership with Chinese automaker BAIC. Verne will own and operate the fleet, handling logistics, maintenance, and the back-end infrastructure. Uber is plugging the whole operation into its global ride-hailing network, giving it instant distribution.
Uber also confirmed it intends to make a strategic investment in Verne, though the amount remains undisclosed. That financial commitment is more than a gesture. It reflects Uber's broader strategy of backing autonomous vehicle companies rather than building the technology itself, a pattern it has repeated with other self-driving partners globally.
Zagreb Is Just the Starting Line
On-road testing is already underway in Zagreb, the Croatian capital where Rimac Group is headquartered. While a firm commercial launch date has not been announced, the momentum is visible. Sixty verification prototypes of Verne's own two-seater electric vehicle have already been produced and tested as of late 2025.
For the initial commercial rollout, the service will use the Pony.ai and BAIC-developed Arcfox Alpha T5 while Verne's own proprietary robotaxis continue development. Riders will be able to hail a vehicle through both the Uber app and Verne's dedicated app, creating a dual-channel booking experience.
Verne CEO Marko Pejkovic made the company's intentions clear in a statement released with the announcement. Europe, he said, needs autonomous mobility that moves beyond testing and becomes a real, usable service. Zagreb is the proof-of-concept, but expansion into new European markets is built into the plan from the start.
Why Mate Rimac Believes Autonomous Vehicles Will Make Human-Driven EVs Obsolete
Mate Rimac's decision to build a robotaxi company while simultaneously being associated with a hypercar brand worth millions might seem paradoxical. But his reasoning is rooted in a long-term bet on where transportation is heading. As he explained in a conversation with a journalist a couple of years ago, he was never interested in producing high-volume electric vehicles for human drivers, precisely because he believes autonomous driving technology will eventually make that entire market category irrelevant.
"It will take a while, but it's coming. I'm sure about that," he said at the time. That conviction has guided how Verne was structured from day one. Rather than trying to build its own self-driving stack, Verne has focused its energy on what it can genuinely own and control: the urban EV platform, the ride-hailing application, and the operational infrastructure behind running a fleet at scale.
Verne's Factory and the Road to Thousands of Robotaxis
Verne is not just building software. The company is constructing a dedicated manufacturing facility in Lučko, Croatia, which is expected to begin operations later in 2026. That factory is designed to produce the company's own purpose-built two-seater robotaxis at scale, the vehicles that will eventually replace the Arcfox Alpha T5 as the primary fleet vehicle.
The company has stated plans to grow to a fleet of thousands of robotaxis over the next several years. That target requires not only manufacturing capacity but also regulatory clearance, operational know-how, and the kind of public trust that only comes from consistent, safe service delivery in real-world conditions. Zagreb is where that trust-building begins.
Pony.ai's Expanding Global Footprint
For Pony.ai, this partnership represents another step in its strategy to expand autonomous vehicle deployments beyond China. The company has been steadily growing its international presence, and supplying both the autonomous driving system and the vehicle hardware to a European fleet operator gives it a valuable foothold in a market where regulatory landscapes are still evolving.
The Arcfox Alpha T5 serves as the operational vehicle for launch, a practical bridge between where Verne is today and where it intends to be when its own vehicles are rolling off the Lučko production line. The technology stack from Pony.ai means Verne does not need to solve the hardest engineering problem in transportation on its own, allowing it to move faster toward commercial viability.
What This Means for Europe's Autonomous Mobility Future
Europe has lagged behind the United States and China in deploying commercial robotaxi services. Regulatory complexity, fragmented markets, and a slower pace of investment have kept the region mostly in the testing phase while competitors accelerated elsewhere. The Verne, Uber, and Pony.ai announcement is a meaningful signal that the gap is closing.
Starting a commercial service in Zagreb, a mid-sized European capital, is a strategically smart choice. It offers a real urban environment without the regulatory and competitive intensity of cities like London, Paris, or Berlin. If Verne can demonstrate safe, reliable, and commercially viable autonomous rides in Zagreb, it builds the evidence base needed to approach regulators and investors in larger markets with confidence.
Europe's cities are dense, increasingly congested, and under pressure to reduce car ownership and emissions. A well-executed autonomous ride-hailing service fits neatly into that transition. Verne is betting it can be the company that makes that transition happen, not as a concept vehicle at a trade show, but as something ordinary people use on an ordinary Tuesday morning to get to work.
A Three-Way Model That Could Scale
What sets this launch apart from many autonomous vehicle announcements is the structural clarity of the partnership. Each company does one thing and does it well. Pony.ai builds the self-driving technology. Verne operates the fleet. Uber connects it to riders. That division of responsibility avoids the trap of trying to own every part of the stack, a trap that has exhausted enormous capital at other companies without producing consumer-ready services.
If the Zagreb launch performs well, the template is repeatable. Uber has the infrastructure to support expansion into dozens of European cities. Pony.ai has the technology platform to scale its system across different vehicle types and geographies. And Verne has the operational model and the manufacturing facility to grow its own fleet on a timeline that matches demand.
The robotaxi race is no longer just a story about California highways and Chinese megacities. It is coming to Europe, and a Croatian startup most of the world has never heard of just put itself on the map.
