Alphabet's Waymo said Tuesday that Munich will be the first European city on its self-driving map, opening a phased rollout that begins with human-driven mapping runs this fall and aims for commercial ride-hailing by the end of 2027.
What Waymo is committing to in Munich
Speaking from Munich, co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said Waymo will start deploying its fleet manually in the coming weeks to build high-definition maps of the Bavarian capital and run supervised tests with trained autonomous specialists behind the wheel. Only after that validation period will Waymo remove drivers and open rides to the public. The company plans to hire locally to support fleet operations and safety.
A regulatory bet on Germany's autonomous framework
Waymo credited Germany's autonomous driving law with making the market attractive. Christian Hirte, parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport, said the government wants to turn Germany into "a global leader in autonomous driving innovation and manufacturing" and framed the Munich announcement as validation of the country's legal framework. Bavarian State Chancellery head Florian Herrmann added that Bavaria intends to "move quickly from testing to real-world deployment" by cutting regulatory barriers.
Global expansion beyond the US
Munich becomes Waymo's third international city after previously announced expansions to London and Tokyo, and the company's first foothold inside the European Union. Waymo says its fleet has completed more than 20 million autonomous trips and now serves hundreds of thousands of paid rides each week across US markets including Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and, more recently, Clark County, Nevada. Its custom 5nm ASIC and Zeekr-built Ojai robotaxi underpin the technology stack the company will bring to Germany.
Safety pitch and community access
Waymo cited data from more than 350 million fully autonomous kilometers, claiming 16 times fewer serious-injury crashes than human drivers, 14 times fewer pedestrian injury crashes and six times fewer cyclist injury crashes. Maik Schubert of the Schubert & Wetzel Guide Dog School, quoted in Waymo's announcement, said reliable autonomous mobility could remove ride-hailing barriers for blind and visually impaired residents. The company opened a signup page for updates at waymo.com/waymo-in-germany.
Reporting based on coverage from Waymo, TechCrunch, CNBC and Reuters.