Waymo Picked a German City for Its European Debut

Waymo has named Munich as the first city in the European Union where it intends to run a driverless taxi service, with commercial rides targeted for the end of 2027. Germany is a slightly unexpected pick for a company that has spent years scaling in the sunbelt cities of the American Southwest, where the weather is forgiving and the road markings are generous. Munich offers narrow streets, real winters, dense cyclist traffic and drivers with firm opinions, which makes it a considerably harder problem than Phoenix and a much better proof point if it works.

The rollout is staged and slow by design. Vehicles with trained specialists behind the wheel will begin appearing on Munich streets within weeks, doing manual mapping work rather than carrying anyone. Supervised autonomous testing follows, then a limited service for invited riders, and only after that a commercial service open to the public, all contingent on regulatory approval. Waymo is leaning on Germany’s 2021 autonomous driving law, which created a framework for driverless operation that most EU member states still lack, and which is a large part of why Germany was chosen at all.

The permits are not in hand. As of the announcement, Waymo held no German operating approvals, which means the end-of-2027 target is an ambition rather than a schedule. German approvals for driverless operation are granted vehicle by vehicle and area by area, and no company has yet cleared that process at the scale a public robotaxi service would need. Waymo is also not the only company circling the city. Uber announced a partnership with the Israeli artificial intelligence firm Autobrains earlier this year to put robotaxis on Munich streets, setting up the first genuine autonomous-vehicle competition in continental Europe before either service has carried a paying passenger.

For travellers, the practical horizon is years out, but the direction is worth noting. Airport ground transport is one of the most reliably unpleasant parts of any trip, and Munich Airport sits about 30 kilometres northeast of the city with a fast rail link and an expensive taxi ride as the alternatives. A driverless option would not be the cheapest choice on day one, and airport pickup zones are usually the last areas an autonomous operator is permitted to serve. But Munich becoming the European test case means the rest of the continent will be watching what happens there.

Sources: electrive, Zag Daily