Greater Paris Driverless Pilot Bid Targets Five Municipalities in 2028

Greater Paris, ride-hailing company Bolt and Stellantis have submitted a proposal to test Level 4 autonomous mobility in as many as five municipalities beginning in 2028. The plan is not yet an approved commercial robotaxi launch: it remains subject to selection by a European Commission initiative, route planning, regulatory clearances and an independent evaluation.

The partners announced the “Greater Paris Autonomous Driving Living Lab” on October 23, 2026. Their joint statement says an initial deployment would examine whether driverless services can fill first- and last-mile gaps, connect people to employment centers, cover off-peak journeys and serve major events.

The proposal has been submitted to the European Commission’s Autonomous Drive Ambition Cities, or ADACities, initiative. The partners hope to begin in up to five municipalities in northwest Greater Paris during 2028, then evaluate an expansion toward roughly 30 municipalities and possible commercial operations by 2030. Every later step is conditional.

Who would provide what?

• Métropole du Grand Paris would coordinate participating municipalities, identify use cases and oversee the public-interest evaluation.
• Bolt would lead service integration and deployment planning through its autonomous-driving unit.
• Stellantis would supply vehicles based on its Level 4-ready platforms and handle vehicle engineering and integration.
• Pony.ai has been identified only as a potential autonomous-driving technology provider. It has not been confirmed as the final supplier.
• NVIDIA technology would support the potential Pony.ai system through its Hyperion compute-and-sensor platform and Halos safety system.

The partners have not identified the exact Stellantis vehicle, fleet size, routes, fare structure or whether safety operators would initially ride onboard. Those omissions matter. They mean the announcement defines a proposed operating framework, not a finished transportation service.

What Level 4 means—and what it does not

Level 4 is “high automation,” but it is geographically and operationally limited. NHTSA’s automation guide explains that a Level 4 system handles the driving task without a human driver inside its approved service area. It is not the same as Level 5, which describes automation able to operate under all conditions and on all roads.

For this proposed Paris pilot, the operating domain would be defined through specific routes, local rules and deployment conditions. The partners say they will work with municipalities and authorities to secure approvals. Operational safety, service quality, public acceptance, public-transport integration, social and environmental effects, and economic feasibility are all listed as evaluation criteria.

The initial deployment would be independently evaluated before any expansion. That makes the 2030 ambition a decision point, not a promise that 30 municipalities will have commercial robotaxis by then.

Why the EU is involved

The European Commission launched ADACities to move European autonomous-driving work beyond isolated demonstrations and toward coordinated urban deployments. Its goals include technical development, safety validation, public acceptance, regulation and a stronger European supply chain for AI-driven mobility.

Greater Paris says the proposed living lab would produce operational evidence for public officials, not just validate vehicle technology. That distinction is important in a metropolitan area with 7.2 million residents and an extensive transit network: the service would be assessed on whether it complements trains and buses rather than simply adding cars.

Reuters independently reported the 2028 target and Stellantis vehicle role, but the joint announcement remains the source for the detailed project design.

Part of a wider European push

The Paris proposal arrives as autonomous-mobility companies are announcing multiple European testing plans. Waymo has targeted Madrid riders in 2027, while emphasizing that its first local phase uses manually driven vehicles. Separately, Aptiv and NVIDIA are developing lower-cost automated-driving compute for production vehicles.

Those projects are not interchangeable. Waymo, Bolt, Stellantis and suppliers such as Pony.ai are pursuing different vehicles, software and operating models. The Paris announcement is distinctive because a regional authority would help define and evaluate the service alongside the mobility operator and automaker.

What comes next

The next meaningful milestones are selection under ADACities, confirmation of participating municipalities, identification of routes and vehicles, and publication of a safety and evaluation plan. Until those steps occur, readers should view 2028 as the partners’ target for a controlled experiment—not a guaranteed date for a public, driverless service across Paris.

Featured image: A separate RATP autonomous-shuttle trial in the Bois de Vincennes, Paris, photographed January 30, 2021. Archive/illustrative image only; it is not the vehicle or service proposed by Greater Paris, Bolt and Stellantis for 2028. Photo by Chabe01 via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.