Waymo has announced it is launching in Munich, its first market in the European Union, following earlier international expansion to London and Tokyo. The public robotaxi service is targeted for late 2027, after a period of mapping and testing with a safety operator behind the wheel. The company cites 16 times fewer serious crashes than human drivers across more than 350 million kilometres driven.
How the Munich launch will work
The rollout will happen gradually. In the coming weeks, Waymo vehicles will begin driving Munich’s streets with a specially trained operator at the wheel, tasked with gathering detailed road mapping and calibrating the self driving software to local traffic conditions.
Only after this phase, and subject to the necessary regulatory approvals, will the service open to the public. Germany has had a dedicated law on autonomous driving since 2021, giving the country a defined regulatory path for level 4 vehicles, meaning cars capable of driving without human intervention within defined operating conditions.
The safety figures Waymo is citing
In its announcement, Waymo pointed to its own aggregated data from more than 350 million kilometres driven in fully autonomous mode. On that basis, the company reports 16 times fewer crashes involving serious injuries compared with human drivers, 14 times fewer crashes involving pedestrian injuries, and six times fewer crashes involving cyclist injuries.
These figures come from the company itself and should be read accordingly, since there is not yet an equivalent independent verification based on European data, where traffic conditions, infrastructure and pedestrian behaviour differ from the American cities where Waymo has operated for years. The service has already completed more than 20 million commercial rides in the United States, where an independent analysis previously cited by US media put the reduction in serious crashes at 91 percent.
The state of road safety in Europe
Safety is a deliberate focus of Waymo’s messaging. According to preliminary European Commission data, around 19,400 people died on EU roads in 2025, down 3 percent from 2024. It marks the ninth consecutive year in which the EU’s target of halving road deaths by 2030 compared with 2019 remains out of reach at the current pace of improvement.
On the role of human error, the European Parliament cites a figure considerably higher than commonly reported: human error is involved in around 95 percent of road accidents in the EU, far from a minority share. This is the figure the EU cites to justify mandating thirty advanced safety systems on new cars, ranging from lane keeping assistance to automatic emergency braking.
Waymo is not the only company targeting Europe
Munich arrives amid intensifying competition around robotaxis on the continent. In August 2026, Uber and Pony.ai announced plans to deploy more than 2,000 robotaxis across five European cities, starting in Zagreb with a local operator from the Rimac group.
Baidu and Lyft’s Apollo Go robotaxis are also set to arrive in Germany and the United Kingdom from 2026, while Chinese company WeRide continues expanding its network across dozens of Asian cities. In Germany, both Mobileye and Volkswagen already hold permits to test self driving vehicles, alongside Waymo.
What still needs to happen before Munich gets its robotaxis
The gap between announcement and an actual public service remains substantial, with more than a year of mapping, testing and approvals separating today from the stated goal of late 2027. In the meantime, Waymo already operates in eleven US cities and has plans to expand to nineteen more.
German authorities, at both federal and Bavarian level, have welcomed the announcement, noting that the country already has the necessary regulatory framework in place. It remains to be seen how quickly local procedures, often more involved than their US counterparts, will allow the move from testing to paid driverless rides.
