Driverless taxis are no longer a demo. They're a business — and increasingly, a political problem.
Waymo said it will launch driverless rides in Germany in 2027, starting with Munich. According to CNBC, that makes Germany the third market Waymo has announced outside the United States, after the UK and Japan. TechCrunch notes that Germany's autonomous vehicle regulations have made the country a hotspot for AV testing and eventual commercial robotaxi deployment — in other words, Waymo is going where the rulebook already exists.
The contrast with parts of the US is sharp. The Verge reports that in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul withdrew a proposal earlier this year that would have opened the door to driverless robotaxis outside New York City, after opposition from taxi drivers, unions, and state lawmakers. As The Verge frames it: robotaxis are expanding, and so is the fight over the rules governing them.
That tension is the actual story. The technology question — can a car drive itself well enough to carry paying passengers? — has largely been answered in the places where these vehicles already operate. The open questions now are jurisdictional and economic: who writes the rules, whether that's a city, a state, or a national government, and what happens to the people who currently drive for a living.
CNBC describes Waymo as the biggest robotaxi player in the US, which makes its overseas expansion a useful signal. Companies tend to deploy where approval is predictable. Germany offers a clear national framework; New York just demonstrated how quickly organized labor and local lawmakers can close a door.
Why it matters: the pace of robotaxi rollout is now being set less by engineering than by which governments decide to say yes — and whose jobs they're willing to put on the table.