Uber's CEO Dara Khosrowshahi dropped into Zagreb on 30 September 2026 for a ride few cities can offer: a robotaxi trip with no safety driver on board. His host was Mate Rimac, whose Verne project is building Croatia's homegrown autonomous vehicle, and the verdict after the ride was reportedly enthusiastic.
Uber is both an investor and strategic partner in Verne, and the two sides used the visit to discuss scaling the service beyond Croatia — eventually with the finished Verne car, which will have no steering wheel and no pedals at all.
This isn't just a photo op. Driverless rides are already running in Zagreb. Since early September 2026, Verne and China's Pony.ai have been carrying passengers on a 22-kilometre test route between Verne's headquarters and Zagreb Airport, with nobody behind the wheel. Those test vehicles are BAIC models running Pony.ai software rather than the final Verne car. And since August, travellers in the Croatian capital have been able to book autonomous rides through the regular Uber app — initially with a licensed operator aboard, while fully driverless trips have been running as separate tests.
There's a financial subplot. The same day as the CEO's visit, Verne's development company, Project 3 Mobility, submitted its final report on an EU-funded robotaxi project backed by €179.5 million in non-repayable funds, of which €89.75 million was advanced in July 2023. Only around €8.77 million of that advance had been justified so far, leaving roughly €80.98 million pending. The sticking point: the project's headline goal — a fully autonomous Level 5 vehicle homologated by the deadline of 30 August — wasn't confirmed in time, with German approval still outstanding. Verne says it's prepared to return funds if the evaluation demands it, and SAFU, the Croatian agency handling the money, now has 60 days to verify the costs.
For the travel side, though, the picture is simple: Zagreb has quietly become one of the first places in Europe where you can hail a self-driving car, and the service looks set to grow. If you're flying into Zagreb Airport over the coming months, your transfer into the city might not involve a human driver at all — a genuine travel curiosity, whether you find it thrilling or slightly unnerving.
