Europe Has an Autonomous Vehicle Problem
October 5, 2025
This Week in The Autonomy Economy is presented by Koop, a specialist insurance provider focused on robotics and autonomous vehicles.
This Week in the Autonomy Economy, London called, DoorDash continues to out innovate the competition and the EU has a stark choice to make as it relates to the future of autonomy on the continent.
London called and we answered. This week, we hopped across the pond for a series of meetings and to experience a ride in the Wayve car on the left-hand side of the road. While there’s a lot of hype around Wayve and how fast they’re progressing, we can report that the hype lives up to reality. What Wayve is developing is genuinely impressive.
During our 45-minute drive, which we’ll be releasing as a full video at a later date, we experienced naturalistic driving that would be hard to distinguish from a skilled human driver. It was smooth, attentive, and alert, the kind of ride that makes you forget there’s no one behind the wheel.
It’s now only a matter of time until Wayve removes the safety driver (pending UK regulations) and begins commercial service with Uber in London. Having experienced London traffic firsthand, moving around the city is not easy and the Wayve car handled it flawlessly.
Wayve’s progress demonstrates that an AI-first approach to autonomy can unlock rapid technical development. But technology alone isn’t enough, scaling autonomous vehicles requires supportive policy decisions.
As we’re seeing in Europe today, decisions made years ago are shaping today’s competitive landscape in ways policymakers may not have anticipated.
📰 Need to Know: This Week in the Autonomy Economy
London was calling, what’s the big news about Wayve?
Wayve, a UK-based autonomous vehicle company, is making major progress with its AI-first approach. A recent 45-minute ride in London demonstrated impressively smooth and naturalistic driving that was hard to distinguish from a skilled human. The technology appears ready for a commercial launch with Uber, pending UK regulatory approval to remove the safety driver.
Why is the European Union at a crossroads with its autonomous vehicle strategy?
The EU is facing a critical moment where it must decide whether to become a leader in developing autonomous technology or primarily a consumer of it. While the European Commission President has called for an “AI First” strategy to build homegrown self-driving cars, the market is already seeing an influx of established Chinese autonomous vehicle companies. These firms are partnering with ride-sharing platforms Uber and Lyft for deployments across the continent, putting Europe’s domestic automotive industry at risk of falling significantly behind in the global autonomy race.
How is DoorDash innovating in the autonomous robot delivery space?
DoorDash is positioning itself to become a major logistics platform, not just a food delivery service. The company recently unveiled “Dot,” a purpose-built autonomous delivery robot capable of traveling up to 20 mph, and a new Autonomous Delivery Platform. This platform orchestrates fulfillment across human couriers, robots, and drones, signaling a clear ambition to build a comprehensive delivery ecosystem that could one day rival Amazon.
What are the latest robotaxi developments in the U.S.?
Expansion continues in key American cities. Zoox is bringing its autonomous vehicle testing to Washington D.C., while Waymo had its testing permit extended in New York City through the end of the year. In the delivery space, Serve Robotics has officially launched its service with Uber Eats in Chicago, deploying dozens of robots to handle orders from over 100 restaurants.
What’s the latest on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD)?
According to Elon Musk, the highly anticipated FSD Version 14 is expected to be released on Monday. The biggest question is how much of an improvement it will be over the previous version and how much closer this update gets Tesla to achieving fully unsupervised autonomous driving.
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What’s Moving the Markets
EU President Urges “AI First” Strategy for Autonomous Vehicles While Chinese Companies Seize the Market
During a speech at Italian Tech Week in Turin this week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for Europe to develop autonomous vehicles and deploy them on city streets. “Self-driving cars are already a reality in the United States and China, the same should be true here in Europe,” she said.
But is the effort too little too late? Europe has already opened its doors to Chinese autonomous vehicle companies, both through investments and commercial deployments, and the reality is that large numbers of autonomous vehicles will soon be operating across the EU, but they won’t be made in Europe.
VW has investments in XPeng and Horizon Robotics, while BMW has a co-development deal with Momenta for autonomous driving technologies. Even though these deals are focused on the China market today, what’s to stop those technologies from being imported back into the EU?
Nothing. BMW’s partner Momenta is already planning to bring their autonomous vehicles to Europe next year in partnership with Uber. Is any of the tech that was co-developed with BMW in those vehicles? Unsure, but from an optics perspective it’s not a good look and it reinforces the fact that Europe is not well prepared for the transition to autonomous vehicles.
The list of Chinese autonomous vehicle companies expanding to Europe keeps growing. Uber has partnerships with Momenta, WeRide, and Baidu. Lyft has a deal with Baidu for Germany. DeepRoute.AI and Pony.AI are also expanding to Europe. Frankly, it’s an onslaught, and the EU is about to become saturated with Chinese-made autonomous vehicles at the same time Ms. von der Leyen is calling for Europe to develop and deploy AI-first autonomous vehicles on the continent.
Compare the ever-growing Chinese autonomous vehicle list to European companies with deployment plans and it begins to look like a blowout. For Europe, it’s VW with their MOIA brand. For China, it’s five different companies and counting, all with grand ambitions.
Now the question becomes, what caused this situation? Was it regulations? Was it culture? Or something entirely different? And when the EU becomes saturated with Chinese-made autonomous vehicles, what happens to Europe’s automotive industry? Does it enter secular decline? At the end of the day, how does the sector ultimately compete in autonomy?
Our take: Europe has a choice to make: exporter of autonomy or importer? Right now, the trajectory is clear, Europe is becoming a market for Chinese autonomous vehicles, not a maker of them. Whether Ms. von der Leyen’s call to action can reverse this trend remains to be seen, but the window is closing fast.
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Piquing Our Interest
DoorDash Unveils Dot, the Autonomous Robot and a new Autonomous Delivery Platform DoorDash is positioning itself not just as a delivery service, but as a delivery platform that could one day rival Amazon. With the unveiling of Dot, a purpose-built autonomous delivery robot this week capable of traveling up to 20 mph on roads, bike lanes, and sidewalks, along with a new Autonomous Delivery Platform that orchestrates multi-modal fulfillment across human dashers, robots, and drones, DoorDash is clearly laying the foundation to become the delivery platform of choice.
Serve Robotics Expands to Chicago with Uber Eats In partnership with Uber Eats, Serve Robotics launched an autonomous robot delivery service from over 100 restaurants with dozens of robots this week.
New York City DOT Extends Waymo’s Testing Permit As Waymo eyes a New York City expansion amid political and regulatory hurdles, the NYC DOT extended Waymo’s testing permit this week until the end of the year.
Zoox Expands Testing to D.C. Zoox is expanding testing to the nation’s capital as the company works towards launching a paid commercial service in multiple cities.
Nissan to Launch Robotaxi Pilot Program in Japan Beginning November 27, 2025, Nissan will commence a limited robotaxi pilot through the end of January 2026 as the company prepares to launch commercial service in 2027 with fleet management and operations partners in Yokohama City, Japan.
📰 Before these stories were featured here, they were available on X. Follow @RoadToAutonomy today to stay up-to-date on the latest news and developments shaping the autonomy economy.
Social Buzz
Is Monday, FSD 14 Release Day?
According to Elon, Monday is the day the world gets FSD 14.
Our take: The biggest question now is, how much better will FSD 14 be than v13.2.9, and how much closer does it get us to FSD Unsupervised?
Tesla is currently ranked #1 with a bullish outlook on the AUTONOMY LEADERBOARD in the personally owned autonomous vehicle category.
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