Munich will be the first city in the European Union where Waymo robotaxis, owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company, will land next year. Its arrival in Europe will begin a few months before in London, where the autonomous taxi company has been traveling the streets for a year with the same cars with which it will offer the service, but for now directed by professional drivers to train their system. The objective is for the passenger to request the vehicle with a mobile app and for the car to take them to their destination. The scene is already daily in 11 cities in the United States and will soon be so in another 21. In China it is also common. The technology, and quite possibly the controversy, is now coming to Europe.
"Autonomous driving is the key to future mobility. Our goal is to make Germany a world leader in innovation and manufacturing in the field of autonomous driving. We have already established the legal framework for this," said Christian Hirte, Parliamentary State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of Transport, in announcing the agreement for Waymo to operate in Munich.
The agreement has a strong symbolic weight, because the Bavarian capital is the headquarters of two of the large German automotive companies BMW and Audi, of the Volkswagen Group.
Germany presents itself in the EU as the test bed for these services. Munich is also the headquarters that Uber has chosen in Europe, with two different companies, Autobrains, through the Nvidia Drive Hyperion platform, and Momenta, to begin offering its autonomous taxi activity.
Freenow, known for its taxi app, which is now owned by Lyft, and Apollo Go, the autonomous car division of Baidu – the Chinese Google – also plans to start offering its services in Germany.
In another German city, Hamburg, Volkswagen has already launched a pilot robotaxis service, called Moia, using its ID electric vans. Buzz.
Along with the taxi, other experiences with the autonomous car are beginning to take shape. Since November 2025, Tesla has been testing its FSD supervised autonomous driving system, which can be applied to its private vehicles, which carry the fourth version of its computer system.
In Spain, the Tesla FSD has traveled about 275,000 kilometers so far without any major incidents being reported, according to the record of the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT).
At the moment, there are five European countries that have approved the FSD: the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Belgium and Denmark. The FSD has traveled more than 640 million kilometers in these European countries so far, demonstrating that it is 5.1 times safer on the highway and 2.7 times safer off the highway compared to manual driving.
Tesla claims that with its system there are 9.4 times fewer sudden accelerations, 8 times fewer sudden brakings and 7.6 times fewer sudden turns.
On October 6, the European Technical Committee for Motor Vehicles (TCMV) could vote on the EU-wide homologation of the Tesla system, which would mean approval of the FSD, which could be used by owners who pay a subscription.
Unlike the autonomous driving systems of robotaxis like Waymo, which are level 4 and can navigate specific environments autonomously without a driver, Tesla's FSD is supervised and level 2. The driver is responsible and must be attentive in case it is necessary to take control in a situation.
Waymo has traveled 354 million kilometers so far and has recorded 94% fewer accidents with serious injuries in the same areas.
Tesla has accumulated 23.35 billion kilometers with FSD in the countries in which it is authorized (United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, in addition to the European countries that already have it). According to their own data, using it leads to 7 times fewer collisions of any type.
