Waymo's Self-Driving Taxis Are Heading to Munich

Waymo announced on August 25, 2026 that it plans to launch a self-driving taxi service in Munich, Germany. It is the first time the Alphabet-owned company is expanding into continental Europe. The service is expected to open to the public toward the end of 2027, according to TechCrunch.

In a blog post titled "Servus München: Waymo is Coming to Germany," the company described its plans for the Munich service (Waymo Blog). Reuters independently reported the same day that Waymo would begin testing self-driving vehicles in the city.

Waymo is using the same step-by-step approach it has used in U.S. cities. First, human drivers operate the vehicles manually to create detailed maps of the streets. Then the cars drive themselves with a human safety driver sitting inside, ready to take over if needed. Finally, the human driver is removed and the cars operate on their own. Waymo is coordinating with Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), state authorities, and local officials for the launch.

Waymo does not currently hold any permits to test self-driving vehicles in Germany. The company set up a German entity months before the public announcement, which means preparatory work has been underway since at least early 2026. Munich is also not Waymo's only European target. The company plans to launch a commercial self-driving taxi service in London in 2026.

Germany was the first EU country to pass laws allowing Level 4 autonomous driving, which means vehicles that can drive themselves without a human behind the wheel, as long as certain conditions are met. That legal foundation gives Waymo a clearer path than most European markets offer. But the company still has to go through the practical process of getting KBA approval and local permits.

Alongside the Munich announcement, Waymo released updated safety data that it is using to make its case to regulators and the public. The company's latest safety analysis covers more than 220 million miles driven fully autonomously, through the end of March 2026, across five U.S. areas including Atlanta for the first time.

The figures are striking. Compared with human drivers in the same areas over the same period, Waymo's vehicles were involved in 94% fewer crashes causing serious or fatal injuries, 82% fewer crashes in which an airbag deployed, and 82% fewer crashes involving any reported injury. For pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists specifically, Waymo recorded 93% fewer injury-causing crashes involving pedestrians, 84% fewer involving cyclists, and 84% fewer involving motorcyclists.

Atlanta, the newest area in the dataset, shows similar results across more than 5.4 million fully autonomous miles: 94% fewer airbag-deployment crashes and 86% fewer injury-involving crashes compared with the human benchmark. Waymo now drives more than 4 million miles per week. Over the lifetime of its operations, the company calculates an estimated 47 fewer crashes causing serious or fatal injuries, 305 fewer airbag-deployment crashes, and 707 fewer injury crashes of any kind than human drivers would have produced in the same places.

For the Munich launch, this data strengthens Waymo's position with regulators. German authorities reviewing a permit application will want this kind of real-world crash evidence, and Waymo's dataset is now large enough to make strong statistical claims across multiple cities. Whether German officials find the U.S. data directly applicable to German driving conditions is an open question. Munich's narrow streets, extensive cycling infrastructure, and winter weather differ meaningfully from Phoenix or Austin.

The timing also matters. Waymo is entering a market where public skepticism toward self-driving vehicles remains high, shaped in part by high-profile incidents involving other autonomous driving systems in Europe. The phased rollout gives the company time to build local trust before removing human oversight.

In my view, what is different here is the scale of the safety data Waymo brings. When I started covering self-driving cars, companies argued safety on the basis of computer simulations and disengagement reports, which count how often a human had to take control. Waymo is now arguing safety on the basis of 220 million real-world autonomous miles and measurable crash reductions. That is a fundamentally stronger case, and it is the kind of data that can shift conversations from whether to allow self-driving cars at all to how quickly to expand them.

Waymo maintains a dedicated landing page at waymo.com/waymo-in-germany describing its German presence and Munich plans. The commercial launch remains more than a year away, and the regulatory and operational milestones between now and late 2027 will determine whether Waymo can meet that timeline.