Bolt to gather Madrid driving data in 2027 for 25,000-vehicle robotaxi plan

The Bolt program is one of several European autonomous vehicle efforts showcased at Nvidia's GTC Berlin event, where companies including Lucid, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Volvo Cars and Einride outlined plans involving higher levels of vehicle automation. Mercedes-Benz is pursuing both level 3 and level 4 technology, and says its MB.DRIVE ASSIST PRO system, developed with Nvidia, is expected to receive approval for urban point-to-point driver assistance in Germany. Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is developing an autonomous version of its ID. Buzz electric van, while Volvo Cars is adopting Nvidia's Hyperion and Alpamayo technologies for future automated-driving systems. Beyond passenger vehicles, Swedish autonomous trucking company Einride is developing its next-generation autonomous driving system using the same computing architecture, and Tier IV and the Technical University of Munich plan to use it in work on autonomous public transport in Germany. These projects reflect a variety of approaches: some manufacturers are concentrating on increasingly capable driver-assistance systems, while others are working towards level 4 vehicles designed to operate without continuous human supervision within defined conditions. As a result, safety validation is becoming an increasingly important part of autonomous vehicle development, which is the gap Nvidia's Halos SAFE framework aims to address. Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said: "Robotaxis are the first mass-market application of robotics and physical AI, reinventing how people and goods move." Whether robotaxis become a mass-market application as quickly as their developers expect remains uncertain, but the expanding number of European projects suggests the region is becoming an increasingly significant testing ground for autonomous mobility, particularly as companies begin moving from development programs towards regulated operation on public roads.