The pilot will begin in Munich in 2026 and, if successful, could expand to other European cities.

The vehicles will be Level 4 autonomous, meaning they can drive without human input within approved zones. At the initial stage, safety operators will remain behind the wheel to monitor operations before the shift to complete autonomy.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive officer, said: “Germany has shaped the global automotive industry for more than a century, and now Munich will help shape the future with autonomous vehicles.”

Momenta, founded in 2016, has been a central player in China’s self-driving industry. It already runs a robotaxi service in Shanghai and supplies driver-assist technology to carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, and General Motors. Its systems are currently installed in more than 400,000 vehicles worldwide.

For Uber, the driverless cars trial is another step in its strategy of working with multiple autonomous vehicle partners. The company has signed over 20 such agreements across ride-hailing, freight, and delivery, generating more than 1.5 million trips annually. 

In the US, it offers rides with Waymo’s robotaxis in cities like Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In the Middle East, it has partnered with WeRide and Momenta in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, with further expansion planned for Dubai.

Competition in Europe is also increasing as Lyft has joined forces with Baidu to launch robotaxi services in Germany and the UK from 2026, while Volkswagen has announced plans to roll out its own autonomous fleet with Uber in Los Angeles. UK-based Wayve is also working with Uber to begin Level 4 trials in London.

However, before Uber and Momenta can begin operations in Munich, regulatory approval will be required. German authorities will need to confirm the vehicles meet strict safety standards and authorise their designated operating areas.

If the trials succeed, Munich could become a launchpad for wider adoption of driverless taxis across Europe, placing Uber and Momenta among the first to introduce large-scale robotaxi services on the continent.

MOTOR Ai is meeting that challenge head-on, having raised a $20 million seed funding round to bring its certified, neuroscience-driven technology into full deployment, starting with German public roads.

The seed round was led by Segenia Capital and eCAPITAL, with participation of German HNWI’s. The new capital will flow into the final steps towards type approval for public roads and the subsequent deployment of autonomous vehicles.

As the only German company, MOTOR Ai has built an intelligence for Level 4 autonomous driving that reasons through data, rather than just reacting. At the heart of the system is a cognitive architecture rooted in active inference, a model from neuroscience that allows vehicles to make structured, transparent decisions. 

That’s how MOTOR Ai makes autonomous technology transparent and aligned with human and regulatory expectations.

“Our solution meets key requirements for transparency and traceability of autonomous driving decisions, as required by authorities,” said MOTOR Ai’s CEO and co-founder Roy Uhlmann. “That clearly distinguishes us from US providers and at the same time optimally complies with European regulatory requirements.”

As other providers pursue autonomy through brute-force data collection and black-box prediction models, MOTOR Ai has taken a different approach: one that is deeply explainable and certifiable on the world’s highest safety levels. 

Its full-stack system already meets the most stringent European and international safety and compliance requirements, including UNECE approval standards, ISO 26262 (ASIL-D), Regulation (EU) 2022/1426, Autonomous Vehicles Approval and Operation Ordinance (AFGBV), GDPR, the EU AI Act, and upcoming Cyber Resilience Act provisions.

MOTOR Ai: Autonomy as a Service

This year, vehicles equipped with MOTOR Ai’s Level 4 system for autonomous driving will start operations in several German districts. The vehicles are supervised on board by a safety driver to be taken out during 2026. 

These deployments include both, the full onboard autonomy stack and the technical supervision required by law.

For the team behind MOTOR Ai, these milestones are the product of years of deep technical development including regulatory groundwork. Since 2017, the company has built its entire autonomy stack in-house from Berlin, working in close dialogue with certification authorities and federal certifiers.

“In a regulated environment like Europe, trust and compliance are non-negotiable,” said Michael Janßen, general partner, Segenia Capital “MOTOR Ai has built a solution that is not only technologically differentiated but fundamentally aligned with how Europe thinks about infrastructure and public safety. This is how autonomy will scale in future.”

“This ‘Made in Germany’ in-house development reduces inter-dependencies while strengthening Europe’s ability to operate in critical innovative technology”, says Lucas Merle, principal at eCAPITAL.

MOTOR Ai’s vision: a certified, explainable driver system that can serve as infrastructure for safe, transparent autonomy – one that Europe can both build on, and believe in. Type-Approval after European and German regulation is foreseen in 2026

“We don’t think the future of autonomy in Europe should be a mystery,” added Uhlmann, explaining the fundamentally different approach Germany and the EU takes in comparison to other markets. “It should be measurable, inspectable, and designed to earn public trust. That’s what we’ve been building, and now we’re ready to scale it.”