Bolt and the Métropole du Grand Paris plan to launch an autonomous ride-hailing pilot in the Paris region in 2028 using vehicles from Stellantis, with Chinese self-driving company Pony.ai named as a potential technology supplier.
The pilot, called “The Greater Paris Autonomous Driving Living Lab” and announced in a joint statement by the three parties on Friday, aims to lead to commercial operations across Greater Paris by 2030, subject to authorizations.
It is the second European robotaxi program Bolt has announced this week, after it said on Wednesday it would start testing in Madrid in 2027 with vehicles from Lucid.
The first deployments will cover up to five municipalities, mainly in the north-west of the metropolitan area, which spans Paris and 129 surrounding communes with about 7.2 million residents.
The companies aim to reach around 30 municipalities by 2030, with a second phase assessing the conditions for wider deployment. The partners did not name the municipalities, give a fleet size or disclose an investment amount.
The pilot will focus on first- and last-mile trips, access to employment hubs, off-peak travel and major events, and will assess gaps in existing transport services.
An independent evaluation will cover safety, user acceptance, integration with public transport and the service’s social, environmental and economic effects.
“This experiment will also help inform public decision-making and define the conditions for potential wider deployment,” said Patrick Ollier, President of the Métropole du Grand Paris, which he said has run more than 70 experiments over the past decade.
“Technological progress only matters when it delivers tangible benefits to our citizens,” Ollier said.
“Autonomous vehicles will only matter if they solve real transport problems,” said Markus Villig, Founder and CEO of Bolt.
Ned Curic, Stellantis’ Chief Engineering and Technology Officer, said the goal was to develop “a driverless mobility that complements public transport.”
The partners pointed to gaps in service across the region despite major rail investment such as the Grand Paris Express, the metro expansion now under construction.
Who Does What
The Métropole will coordinate with the municipalities and oversee the evaluation. Bolt will lead service integration and deployment planning through its subsidiary Bolt Autonomous Driving Solutions, with rides booked on its app.
Stellantis will supply vehicles built on its Level 4-ready platforms, along with engineering, manufacturing and integration work.
Pony.ai’s system, if chosen, would run on Nvidia‘s Hyperion hardware platform and its Halos safety system. Its role has not been confirmed.
The project has been submitted to the European Commission’s ADACities initiative, which the Commission launched in June to help selected cities deploy autonomous mobility. Participating cities are to target fleets of 100 or more autonomous vehicles by 2030.
Two Cities, Two Stacks
The Paris and Madrid programs use different vehicles and software.
In Madrid, Bolt chose Nvidia’s Alpamayo driving software, running on Hyperion, for Lucid vehicles. It expects to start with “tens of vehicles” in 2027, initially to collect driving data, Bolt told Reuters on Wednesday.
Madrid’s regional government created a permit that allows limited commercial operations before full approval, Kabanov said. Paris has not announced an equivalent framework, and the partners said commercial service there depends on obtaining the necessary authorizations.
That program builds on Bolt’s September agreement with Lucid, under which Bolt aims to deploy at least 25,000 autonomous Lucid vehicles on the carmaker’s upcoming Midsize platform.
That agreement is a memorandum of understanding with no purchase commitment, and Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli said the first batch could roll out as early as 2028.
Paris instead brings together two partners Bolt has worked with since last year.
Bolt and Stellantis agreed in December 2025 to jointly explore Level 4 vehicles based on Stellantis’ mid-size eK0 van and its STLA Small platform, with test vehicles in 2026 and industrial-scale production targeted for 2029.
Stellantis and Pony.ai had already signed their own partnership in October 2025, starting with an eight-seat, fully electric Peugeot e-Traveller van for Level 4 testing in Luxembourg and planning deployments in other European cities from 2026.
In June, Bolt joined them with a one-year trial in Luxembourg, with a safety driver, using Pony.ai’s seventh-generation system on a Stellantis mid-size van.
The Paris plan is the first to put all three companies into a city-backed program aimed at a commercial service.
Pony.ai also supplies Uber in Europe, including a paid service in Zagreb with operator Verne and planned testing in London.
In August, Pony.ai and Uber said they planned to deploy more than 2,000 robotaxis across Europe. Pony.ai ran 1,975 robotaxis globally at the end of June, according to its second-quarter results, and targets 3,500 by the end of 2026.
Bolt operates ride-hailing in more than 50 countries, including 23 EU member states.
100,000 Vehicles by 2035
Bolt aims to have 100,000 autonomous vehicles on its platform across Europe and the wider UNECE region by 2035.
“Our ambition is not to bring autonomous driving to just a handful of cities,” Jevgeni Kabanov, Bolt’s President and Head of Autonomous Driving, said on Wednesday, naming Germany and France as key future markets.
Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said in December that Stellantis’ AV-ready platforms “are designed for maximum flexibility,” and that it expected its vehicles to play a major role in Bolt’s plan.
Another Stellantis French Bet
Stellantis made a separate autonomous-driving announcement in France on the same day.
Together with Wayve and Nvidia, it said it would work to advance autonomous-vehicle deployment in France, unveiled with the French government at the Assises du Véhicule Autonome conference in Paris.
Stellantis will contribute its Level 4-ready platforms and Wayve its AI Driver, integrated with Nvidia’s Halos operating system and Hyperion compute and sensor architecture. That release gave no timeline, vehicles or cities.
“France is committed to adapting its regulatory framework to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles,” said Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot.
The two announcements leave Stellantis with two autonomous-driving software partners in France, Pony.ai with Bolt and Wayve with Nvidia, both running on Nvidia hardware.
Competition
Competition for Europe’s first robotaxi markets is building. Baidu‘s Apollo Go has agreed to deploy with Lyft and Uber in Europe, starting with London.
Pony.ai, Uber and Verne began driverless test rides with passengers in Zagreb in September, WeRide and Uber won Spain’s first Level 4 permit for a 20-vehicle Madrid fleet, and Waymo has begun testing in Munich ahead of a planned 2027 launch.
Volkswagen’s robotaxi unit lost potential investors when Uber and Lyft dropped talks to take a stake, Manager Magazin reported in September.
