By Mauro Orru

Uber Technologies plans to launch a robotaxi program in the German city of Munich, marking the latest effort from the ride-hailing group to bring autonomous driving to the streets of Europe.

The company is joining forces with Israeli artificial-intelligence startup Autobrains Technologies to deploy software that enables vehicles to understand context, assess risks and make decisions in real time. The technology essentially relies on several AI agents to reason and take action, instead of having a single model that handles the full task of driving.

Uber and Autobrains will utilize Nvidia's Drive Hyperion, an autonomous driving development platform that helps auto companies and startups create, test and roll out driver-assisted and autonomous-driving programs at scale.

The announcement, which comes at the beginning of Nvidia's GTC conference in Taipei, marks the latest move from Uber to roll out self-driving vehicles in Europe. Last year, Uber and self-driving car startup Wayve Technologies agreed to launch public-road trials of fully autonomous vehicles in London.

The companies said at the time they had picked the U.K. capital because of its significantly different road layouts and traffic laws compared with U.S. locations, where most testing had been conducted. Now, Uber and Autobrains hope to venture into Munich's dense streets and high-speed road networks--pending regulator approval--saying the German city provides the right environment to launch robotaxis at scale.

"The challenge is not just building autonomous vehicles--it's bringing them into a commercial network where they can reliably serve riders at scale," Uber's global head of autonomous mobility and delivery, Sarfraz Maredia, said. "This program creates a new path to do that."

Uber gave up on costly plans to develop its own driverless taxis years ago after it sold its self-driving-car unit to Aurora Innovation, turning to partnerships with other companies to provide the service. The company said the program would let carmakers that want to take part combine their vehicles with autonomous technology and fleet operations within Uber's ride-hailing ecosystem.

Autonomous and assisted driving is gaining traction in Europe. Last week, the Estonian Transport Administration said it would allow Tesla drivers to use the company's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system that helps them change lanes and navigate around other vehicles and objects.

Estonia became the EU's third member state to approve FSD, following Lithuania last month and the Netherlands in April. The Netherlands Vehicle Authority, or RDW, said the system had been tested for more than a year and a half and that using it correctly made a positive contribution to road safety.

The agency submitted an application to have the technology approved across the whole of the EU, though individual countries can recognize the Dutch approval and allow Tesla to roll out FSD as EU authorities review the application.

Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 01, 2026 05:38 ET (09:38 GMT)

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