Bolt will own and operate the new fleet of autonomous vehicles.

Estonian ride-hailing service Bolt has partnered with US carmaker Lucid to deploy at least 25,000 fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) across multiple European cities, marking the latest efforts by businesses to bring robotaxis to the region while regulators attempt to play catch-up with the technology.

The partnership will utilise Bolt’s extensive European data along with Lucid’s software-defined vehicle platform to develop an autonomous driving system (ADS)-ready vehicle platform designed for level-four autonomous mobility. The platform will be built on Nvidia’s Hyperion, a production-ready AV reference architecture.

Bolt will own and operate the new vehicles, it said. The company hopes to grow its AV fleet to 100,000 by 2035.

The Estonian company will work across product development through to commercial operation in its new partnership, helping define vehicle requirements as well as software, safety and rider-experience parameters. It will also build the fleet infrastructure, operating systems and city partnerships needed to deploy the AVs at scale.

“Autonomous driving in Europe requires data, software, vehicles and operations to work as one system built for European roads and regulation,” said Markus Villig, the founder and CEO of Bolt.

“Lucid brings a world-class platform, and together, we will co-design the vehicle and software based on our data and more than a decade of operating experience across more than 850 cities.”

Robotaxis are a common sight across major US and Chinese cities, but expanding operations to older European cities with often rainy weather has been a challenge for global AV leaders.

Last month, Alphabet-owned Waymo announced it would introduce driverless robotaxis on German roads by the end of next year, while Uber and Pony AI said they would deploy more than 2,000 robotaxis across Europe.

Uber launched its first European robotaxi service in Croatia late last month in partnership with Pony and Croatian mobility company Verne, while its London deployment began taking rides earlier this month.

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