Self-driving taxis coming to Munich by end of 2027

Waymo, a company owned by Google's parent firm Alphabet, is bringing self-driving taxis to Europe. The company has announced plans to launch a commercial taxi service using fully autonomous vehicles—cars that drive themselves without a human driver—in Munich, Germany by the end of 2027.

This is a significant step for Waymo's European expansion. Munich will be Waymo's first city operating inside the European Union. The company already runs autonomous taxi services in a few American cities, including parts of San Francisco and Phoenix. Now it's betting that German drivers and regulators are ready for the same technology.

For everyday readers, this means that within about a year, people in Munich could potentially book a ride in a car with no human driver behind the wheel—similar to ordering a regular taxi through an app, but without anyone controlling the vehicle. The service still needs approval from German authorities, but Waymo is clearly confident it will get the green light.

Waymo's expansion into Europe signals that self-driving technology is moving from being an American experiment to a real-world service in major cities. Whether other European cities will follow Munich remains to be seen.