Verne Launch Fully Driverless Robotaxi Rides in Zagreb

Zagreb just got a little closer to a robotaxi service that runs without anyone behind the wheel. Verne doesn’t get anywhere near the attention that Waymo or Tesla pull in every time they talk about bringing robotaxis to Europe, yet it’s the company that just made a fully driverless ride with real passengers happen on European public roads first, ahead of the bigger names still promising it. Verne and Pony.ai started fully driverless test rides today, and this time there’s no AV operator, the trained employee who’s normally onboard ready to step in if needed, no safety driver, nobody at all besides the invited passengers.

I’ve been following Verne’s robotaxi rollout since the Rimac backed startup began testing its first prototypes in Zagreb, so it’s great to see that testing phase culminate in an outright success. The rides run on a 22 kilometre route that connects Verne’s headquarters and one of Zagreb’s main business districts with Zagreb Airport. It’s a route locals actually use every day for commutes and flights, not a closed loop built purely for demonstration.

What changed since April

Five months ago, Pony.ai, Verne and Uber announced their partnership to bring Europe’s first commercial robotaxi service to market, splitting the work three ways. Pony.ai supplies the autonomous driving system, Verne runs the service on the ground, and Uber puts the whole thing in front of riders through its app.

That commercial service launched in April, and Verne says its vehicles have now covered more than 200,000 autonomous kilometres. Up until this point, every ride still had an AV operator on board, ready to step in if needed. These new test rides drop that operator entirely. Pony.ai’s system makes every driving decision, while Verne’s remote team simply watches over the vehicle.

How the technology holds up without a human backup

This is essentially Level 4 autonomy in practice, the point where the car handles the entire driving task within its operating area without a human ready to intervene. If you want the full breakdown of what separates that from driver assistance features, my explainer on the SAE autonomous driving levels breaks it down further.

Pony.ai’s system leans on 360 degree sensor coverage with several layers of redundancy built in, plus what the company calls a fail operational design, meaning the vehicle can handle a sensor or system fault without simply stopping in traffic. Pony.ai says this setup has proven itself in commercial operations across major Chinese cities, including in heavy rain, snow and typhoons, so Zagreb traffic and Croatian weather shouldn’t be much of a stretch by comparison.

The vehicles used for this phase also come with a new interior. Verne removed the front passenger seat entirely, which opens up the cabin, frees up luggage space and leaves room for a larger display. Between the rear seats sits a new central console with a touchscreen for ride management and cabin controls, along with extra storage and charging points. Don’t expect this to be the finished product either because Verne’s purpose built robotaxi, the vehicle it’s been teasing for a while now, is still being developed separately. What’s rolling around Zagreb right now is a reworked version of the current generation car, used to put the driverless software and the new cabin through their paces together in everyday traffic.

Where this leaves Verne’s Zagreb service

Verne’s commercial robotaxi service, still the first of its kind in Europe, has completed thousands of paid rides since April and holds an average passenger rating of 4.7 out of 5. The operating area now spans more than 100 square kilometres of the city. These fully driverless rides run under Croatian rules for autonomous vehicle prototype testing on public roads, and Verne plans to widen the driverless routes over the coming months with the goal of eventually reaching its entire Zagreb operating area. There’s no confirmed date yet for when fully driverless rides open up to the general public, so for now they’re limited to invited testers. Verne’s own guide on how pickups and drop offs work explains how the process plays out for riders using its existing commercial service today.

In Verne’s press release, CEO Marko Pejković framed it as a step beyond simple testing, closer to how a real driverless commercial service would actually run. Pony.ai founder and CEO Dr. James Peng described the Zagreb progress as proof that the company’s Virtual Driver technology can scale from China into European deployment. For a city that only got its first robotaxi ride in April, going driverless with real passengers five months later is a fast pace by any measure. What happens once the routes expand and the testing pool grows beyond invited riders will show whether Zagreb becomes the template other European cities follow for driverless robotaxis.