Uber picks Munich for robotaxi program with Autobrains and Nvidia's agentic AI approach

Uber picks Munich for its next robotaxi push, with Autobrains and Nvidia

The ride-hailing company is betting that Germany's automotive heartland, and a less sensor-heavy approach to autonomy, can finally make robotaxis scale in Europe. Munich is about to become a test of a particular theory: that the cheapest way to put a driverless taxi on a European street is to stop building special cars for it. Uber said on Sunday that it will launch a robotaxi programme in the German city alongside Autobrains, an Israeli autonomy firm, with the vehicles running on Nvidia's DRIVE Hyperion platform. The announcement was made at Nvidia's GTC conference in Taipei, and the deployment is contingent on German regulatory approval. The choice of city is not incidental. Munich is the home of BMW and a dense cluster of suppliers, and it offers the mix Uber says it wants: tight inner-city streets, fast ring roads, and what the company politely calls "a thoughtful German regulatory framework." Germany has had federal rules permitting driverless vehicles in defined operating areas since 2021, which makes it one of the few European markets where a Level 4 service is a paperwork problem rather than a legal impossibility. What is genuinely different here is the autonomy stack. Most robotaxis on the road today, the ones run by Waymo and its peers, depend on bespoke vehicles bristling with lidar and a single large end-to-end model trained to do everything at once. Autobrains is selling the opposite. Its "agentic AI" breaks the driving task into specialised agents, each handling a slice of the problem, running on standard automotive sensors and ordinary automotive-grade compute. The pitch is that this is cheaper to build and easier to drop into any carmaker's vehicle. That last point is the commercial idea Uber keeps returning to. The three companies describe the programme as "OEM-agnostic," meaning the software is meant to run across different manufacturers' cars rather than a single custom fleet. "Autonomous driving will not scale by relying on a single model to solve every driving scenario," said Igal Raichelgauz, Autobrains' chief executive and founder. "It requires systems that can reason, adapt, and make decisions under uncertainty." Uber, which sold its own self-driving unit in 2020, has spent the years since assembling exactly this kind of partnership rather than owning the technology. It is the same template behind its Tokyo pilot with Wayve and Nissan and its tie-up with Pony.ai and Verne, whose vehicles became Europe's first commercial robotaxi service in Zagreb earlier this year. Sarfraz Maredia, Uber's global head of autonomous mobility, framed Munich in the same terms: the hard part, he said, "is bringing them into a commercial network where they can reliably serve riders at scale." Several things were left unsaid. The companies named no launch date, no fleet size, and no vehicle. They did not say which carmaker, if any, would supply the cars, nor whether early rides would carry safety operators, as they do in Zagreb. The Munich plan also tracks a target Uber flagged last year, when it first signalled an intention to begin self-driving operations in the city, so the announcement firms up a timeline more than it sets a new one. Europe has been the continent where robotaxis are announced more often than they are ridden. Munich is now on the list of places where that is supposed to change, pending a regulator's signature.

Driverless taxis: Uber plans to test robotaxis in Munich

In San Francisco and Beijing they are already a familiar sight; soon driverless taxis could also be ferrying passengers around Munich. Uber plans to roll out autonomous robotaxis there, but it is still waiting for the green light from regulators. The decision was announced in Taipei, but it actually concerns a completely different city: in Munich, Uber plans to deploy autonomous robotaxis together with the AI company Autobrains. Uber has picked the Bavarian capital: "Subject to regulatory approval, Munich will serve as the first launch city for the robotaxi programme," the company said in a statement. That could make Munich the first German city where passengers can order autonomous robotaxis via the Uber app. The companies involved unveiled the plans at the GTC technology conference in Taipei. Munich as a test bed for autonomous driving Uber justifies its choice of Munich with the city's role as a European automotive hub, its dense urban traffic and Germany's regulatory framework for autonomous driving. The aim is to develop a model that can later be used in other cities and on different vehicle platforms. Unlike many previous robotaxi projects, the technology is not intended to be tailored to specially developed vehicles. Instead, the partners are pursuing a so-called approach designed to be compatible with various carmakers. Industry observers see this as an attempt to bring down the high costs of autonomous fleets and, ideally, to scale up the technology more quickly, in other words to roll it out in additional cities. So far, the companies have not said which manufacturers are involved, how large the fleet will be or when the first passengers might actually be carried. What lies behind "agentic AI" At the heart of the project is the driving software developed by the Israeli company Autobrains. Unlike many of its competitors, the company says it does not rely on a single large AI model that handles all driving tasks. "Autonomous driving will not be scalable if you rely on a single model to solve every driving scenario," Autobrains founder Igal Raichelgauz said. Instead, the overall driving task is divided up among several specialised AI agents that assess different traffic situations and make decisions in real time. This is intended to make the system more robust in the face of complex and unpredictable situations. The approach is known as agentic AI. The company, which has been working on solutions for driver-assistance systems since 2018, argues that multiple specialised systems can cope better with uncertainty than a monolithic approach. The vehicles are to run on Nvidia's DRIVE Hyperion platform, a computing and sensor architecture for Level 4 autonomous vehicles. This level of automation in principle permits driverless journeys within defined operating areas. Uber banks on partnerships instead of its own robotaxis For Uber, the Munich project is part of a broader strategy. The company now follows a platform model and no longer develops autonomous driving systems in-house. Instead, Uber works with various technology partners and integrates their vehicles into its existing ride-hailing network. Ride-hailing refers to ordering transport services via digital apps. In recent months, Uber has already announced similar partnerships with other providers of autonomous driving technologies. Together with Nvidia, the company is planning in the longer term to deploy autonomous fleets in several dozen cities worldwide. Nvidia's vice-president for automotive, Ali Kani, told Euronews in January that partially autonomous driving would arrive later this year. "We need to move forward as quickly as regulation allows. And I believe it is opening up," Kani said. Competition in this market is increasing at the same time. In the United States, Google sister company Waymo already operates commercial robotaxi services in several major cities. Tesla, Mobileye and various Chinese providers are also working on autonomous fleet solutions. Tesla boss Elon Musk has predicted that self-driving cars could dominate road traffic in as little as five years. Europe's robotaxi market is only just beginning A commercial robotaxi service would be a major step for Germany. While autonomous vehicles are already part of everyday life in cities such as San Francisco, Phoenix or Beijing, Europe is still at an early stage when it comes to large-scale deployment. Autonomous taxis in Madrid were originally due to be rolled out from 2026. The companies are therefore presenting Munich as a potential springboard for a broader European expansion. Whether this actually turns into a regular robotaxi service, however, will depend not only on the technology, but also on regulatory approvals, proof of safety and the economic viability of the model.

Uber Chooses Munich as AI Robotaxi Testing Ground

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.