You can ride a Pony.ai robotaxi in two kinds of places. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Pony.ai runs fully driverless, fare-charging service under its own PonyPilot brand. Outside China, you book through a local partner’s app: the Karwa app in Doha, Qatar, and the Uber or Verne app in Zagreb, Croatia. Both overseas services still had a trained operator on board on October 19, 2026.
Pony.ai builds the self-driving system and, in China, runs the service. Abroad it uses what it calls a joint deployment model: Pony.ai supplies the driving technology, a partner owns and operates the fleet, and a ride-hailing app handles booking.
Where Pony.ai robotaxis run today
- Guangzhou, China: fully driverless, paid. In August 2026 Pony.ai said service had grown beyond Nansha District into central Haizhu, Tianhe, Huangpu and Panyu, adding about 300 square kilometers this year (Pony.ai Q2 update).
- Shenzhen, China: fully driverless, paid. The same update lists Bao’an International Airport, Shekou Cruise Homeport and the Shenzhen Bay Port crossing to Hong Kong among the stops served.
- Beijing and Shanghai, China: fully driverless, paid. Pony.ai describes itself as operating driverless commercial service in all four of China’s tier-one cities (Pony.ai, November 2025). In Shanghai, driverless service started in the Jinqiao and Huamu areas of Pudong.
- Doha, Qatar: paid rides through the Karwa app, operated with Mowasalat (Karwa), Qatar’s national transport company, with safety operators on board. Coverage includes Old Doha, West Bay, the Corniche and a link between Hamad International Airport and the city (Pony.ai, September 9, 2026).
- Zagreb, Croatia: paid rides through the Uber app or the Verne app, in key areas including the city center, 07:00–21:00, with a licensed operator behind the wheel (Uber, Verne and Pony.ai, August 20, 2026). Separately, fully driverless test rides for invited passengers started on September 10 on a 22 km route to Zagreb airport (Pony.ai and Verne). Those invite-only rides are not open to the public.
Pony.ai has also run driverless trials in Dubai and said in April 2026 that it expects public, fare-charging service there later in 2026. We found no launch announcement on Pony.ai’s blog as of October 19, 2026.
How to ride in China
In China, you book through PonyPilot, Pony.ai’s own ride-hailing service; Pony.ai said it had 1.5 million registered users there by mid-2026. Pony.ai’s public pages don’t publish a step-by-step booking guide or a fare table. What they do make clear is that driverless service covers mapped zones inside each city, not whole cities, so check in the app that both your pickup and drop-off are inside the service area before you request a ride.
Fares are set per city and shown in the app before you confirm. A request depends on how many cars are free in your zone, so it is not guaranteed a car right away.
How to ride in Doha and Zagreb
In Doha, book through the Karwa app. In Zagreb, you can book an autonomous ride in the Uber app inside the service area, or book directly in the Verne app. In both cities a human operator rides along at this stage, so the experience is closer to a supervised self-driving taxi than a driverless one. Fully driverless operation in each city depends on further approvals.
What comes next
Pony.ai’s fleet reached 1,975 robotaxis on June 30, 2026, and it says it is targeting more than 3,500 by the end of 2026 across over 20 cities. Uber and Pony.ai have announced a plan to deploy more than 2,000 Pony.ai robotaxis in Europe, and Uber said the next European markets would be named later this year. These are company targets, not service you can book.
For how other robotaxi services compare, see our guides to Waymo fares and cities, riding a Zoox, Tesla Robotaxi and the Nuro, Uber and Lucid robotaxi. Our explainer on remote assistance vs remote driving covers what happens when a driverless car needs help.