Tag Archives: Autonomous driving

News

Stellantis and Bolt Team Up to Put Driverless Ride-Hailing on Europe’s Streets

In a move that could accelerate Europe’s autonomous mobility race, Stellantis and Bolt have announced a new partnership aimed at deploying Level 4 driverless vehicles across the continent. It’s a pairing that blends Stellantis’ hardware muscle with Bolt’s sprawling mobility network, and if all goes according to plan, it could make robotaxis a familiar sight on European roads by the end of the decade.

A Marriage of Platform and Platform

Stellantis is bringing its AV-Ready Platforms™ to the table — specifically the eK0 medium-size van architecture and the STLA Small platform. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky concepts. They’re engineered from the chassis up for sensor integration, high-performance compute modules, and the stack of redundancies required to meet stringent European safety standards. That last part is critical: Level 4 means the vehicle must be able to operate without a human fallback under defined conditions.

Bolt, meanwhile, provides the ecosystem. The company’s app-based ride-hailing operation spans more than 50 countries, including 23 EU member states. It has the customer base, the routing intelligence, and the operational footprint to actually put autonomous fleets to work. Bolt has publicly stated a long-term goal of introducing 100,000 autonomous vehicles to its platform by 2035 — and Stellantis may serve as the hardware foundation for a portion of that fleet.

From Test Mules to Production Reality

The roadmap is ambitious but not reckless. Stellantis and Bolt expect to begin on-road trials in select European markets as early as 2026. Think limited prototypes, geofenced zones, and a healthy amount of regulatory oversight. From there, the rollout transitions to pilot fleets and, if the data looks good, industrial-scale production with an initial target set for 2029.

This phased approach isn’t just strategic — it’s essential. Europe has some of the world’s toughest safety, data protection, and cybersecurity frameworks. Both companies say they plan to work hand-in-hand with regulators to make sure the system meets or exceeds every requirement along the way.

Why It Matters

For Stellantis, this is another brick in its global driverless strategy — and a chance to expand an ecosystem of partners focused on autonomy at scale. Its AV-Ready Platforms™ are designed to be cost-effective for operators, which could help make autonomous fleets economically viable instead of merely experimental.

For Bolt, the partnership is a leap toward its futuristic fleet vision. Bolt has always leaned into efficient, shared mobility rather than solo ownership, and autonomy aligns perfectly with that ethos.

What the Leaders Are Saying

Antonio Filosa, Stellantis CEO, frames the partnership as both practical and ecological:
“Our AV-Ready Platforms™ are designed for maximum flexibility, so we can deliver the best possible experience for European customers. Autonomous fleets can also contribute to a lower carbon footprint by enabling a shared and optimized mobility, reducing congestion and emissions. Partnering with Bolt is intended to bring this vision closer to reality.”

Bolt’s founder and CEO, Markus Villig, highlights the European focus:
“This partnership brings together two companies who understand the specific dynamics of operating in Europe. By combining Stellantis’ AV-Ready Platforms™ and our operational expertise, we plan to create the best autonomous vehicle offering that is tailored for European needs, in line with European standards.”

The Stellantis–Bolt collaboration won’t put fleets of Level 4 vans on the road overnight. But it signals something equally important: the transition from autonomous R&D to autonomous deployment. With trials slated for 2026 and production targeted for 2029, Europe’s ride-hailing landscape may look dramatically different by the time Bolt’s 2035 goal rolls around.

If the partnership delivers as promised, it could mark one of the most significant steps toward everyday driverless mobility that Europe has seen yet.

Source: Stellantis

News

Stellantis Shows Off the Next Leap in Automated Driving at Hi-Drive Brussels

If you want a glimpse at the road ahead—one where your car reads the world as fluently as you do—Stellantis just offered a clear window into that future. At the Hi-Drive Final Event in Brussels, the global automaker laid out its most advanced automated-driving tech yet, and it’s aimed squarely at tackling the messy, unpredictable, very real world the rest of us drive in every day.

Hi-Drive, Europe’s flagship automation program, is built around one mission: move automated driving beyond the carefully manicured test route and into the gritty, chaotic mix of urban streets, highways, and everything in between. The project’s researchers aren’t just building smarter cars—they’re trying to prove those cars can behave reliably, safely, and intelligently in the wild.

“Hi-Drive is a great example of open innovation,” said Anne Laliron, Stellantis’s SVP of Technology Research. She emphasized that collaboration with Europe’s leading tech and research players is helping the company accelerate automated driving from lab theory to practical mobility. And at Brussels, Stellantis backed that up with metal—and a whole lot of sensors.

Two Test Cars, Two Approaches to the Future

Stellantis brought two “Living Lab” cars to demonstrate how its next-gen systems are taking shape.

Peugeot e-2008 Prototype
Sitting under a rooftop sensor stack that looks ready to map Mars, the e-2008 bristles with hardware: eight lidars, nine cameras, four radars, plus both short-range and cellular V2X communications. This isn’t gadget overload—it’s how the car builds a 360-degree view of its world. The setup is designed for dense urban environments, where automated systems must identify everything from cyclists weaving between lanes to sudden pedestrian crossings.

Maserati Levante (MY2018) Prototype
The Levante, on the other hand, focused on high-definition mapping and V2X communication. Using digital-signal messaging from infrastructure and other vehicles, it can interpret hazard alerts, react to dynamic road signage, and generally stay far more aware than any system relying on onboard sensors alone. The goal: driving that’s safer because the car knows more than what’s visible through the windshield.

Why Connectivity Is the Real Secret Sauce

If automated driving has a backbone, Stellantis believes it’s advanced connectivity. Short-range communication, 5G cellular networks, and high-speed data exchange will allow future automated vehicles—not just Stellantis’s—to feed each other traffic info, road conditions, and safety alerts.

In other words: your next car won’t just see the world. It’ll talk about it.

What Stellantis Is Doing Right Now

While Level 4 driverless vehicles are still in development, Stellantis is focusing on practical, usable tech today. That includes real-time traffic updates, driver-assist safety systems, and Level 2+ hands-free highway features—tools meant to ease the mental load rather than take over entirely.

But the company clearly has no intention of stopping there. It has two major parallel collaborations pushing toward scalable robotaxi-level autonomy:

  • NVIDIA, Uber, and Foxconn
  • Pony.ai

Both programs will run on Stellantis’s new AV-Ready Platform™, the company’s flexible architecture built to underpin a wide range of autonomous passenger and commercial vehicles.

The Big Picture

Stellantis isn’t just chasing a buzzword future of “smart mobility.” The company is investing heavily in automated driving as a long-term strategy—one that sees future cities where vehicles are cleaner, safer, more aware, and increasingly driverless.

If the tech shown in Brussels is any indication, Stellantis is betting that the next generation of mobility won’t just assist the driver… it may replace the driver altogether.

Source: Stellantis

News

Von der Leyen Wants an AI Overhaul—Can Europe’s Automakers Keep Up?

For years, Europe has been the world’s guardian of combustion know-how—diesel wizardry, autobahn-bred engineering, and meticulously tuned chassis dynamics. But in the race toward electrification and autonomy, the continent has watched China and the U.S. sprint ahead. Now, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says that era of hesitation is over.

Her message to automakers is blunt: the future must be built in Europe, and it must be built now.

The Wake-Up Call

Europe’s electric-vehicle sector has spent the last half-decade blinking in the glare of China’s surge. BYD, NIO, and a fleet of aggressive newcomers have flooded the global EV conversation with competitive pricing, dazzling software, and volume. European brands—once the technological tastemakers—risk slipping into reaction mode rather than leading the charge.

Von der Leyen has spent weeks urging Brussels to stop the slide. The Commission is preparing to finalize its 2035 combustion ban decision, but the real dilemma is larger: double down on next-gen tech, or loosen regulations to avoid further industry strain? Meanwhile, mobility’s next wave is already forming.

A New Breed of European Cars

One prong of her vision is refreshingly small. Literally. She’s calling for a new EU class of compact, urban, affordable EVs—“E-cars”—mirroring Japan’s famously efficient Kei cars. These pint-size people-movers would give European automakers space to innovate without chasing luxury margins or SUV profits. If executed, it could reboot Europe’s struggling volume segment and offer consumers a cheap ticket into electrified mobility.

But the second prong is where the stakes get stratospheric.

The AI-First Offensive

Von der Leyen wants Europe to launch a full-scale offensive on AI-powered autonomous vehicles, asserting that autonomy isn’t a far-off dream—it’s already a reality in the U.S. and China. If Europe wants relevance, it needs skin in the game.

A Commission official put it plainly: AI could revitalize Europe’s automotive sector and improve safety across the board. Von der Leyen frames it as an “AI-first, safety-first” approach—linking industrial competitiveness to smarter, safer public roads.

For now, Europe’s AV presence lags behind American robo-taxi pilots and China’s fast-moving experiments. But Brussels sees that gap as opportunity, not defeat.

Cities as Testbeds, Streets as Laboratories

The plan doesn’t stop at building autonomous cars—it includes rewiring Europe’s urban landscape to host them. Von der Leyen revealed that over 60 Italian mayors have already signed on to help create a network of pilot cities ready for driverless mobility.

These cities would serve as continental proving grounds for homegrown autonomous platforms, giving European automakers something they desperately need: real-world deployment at scale.

Von der Leyen wants vehicles that are “made in Europe and made for European streets”—a direct swipe at dependence on foreign tech while acknowledging the need for solutions tailored to Europe’s narrow historic centers, dense populations, and varied traffic ecosystems.

Fighting for an Industry—and for Millions of Jobs

Europe’s automotive sector isn’t just a business; it’s a backbone. It employs millions across factories, suppliers, R&D centers, design studios, and transport networks. Von der Leyen warns that without aggressive innovation, Europe risks losing not only market share but livelihoods.

She argues that AI could help ease congestion, connect remote communities, and safeguard employment by keeping Europe competitive in a rapidly shifting market.

The bottom line? Europe can’t afford another “lost decade.” Too much is riding on it.

“Cars of the Future Must Be Produced in Europe”

Von der Leyen’s closing line has the cadence of a rallying cry—and maybe that’s exactly what it is. Europe once set the gold standard for automotive engineering. Now, it’s trying to prove it can lead the age of autonomy and AI as well.

Whether automakers answer the call—and whether consumers trust a European-built autonomous future—will define the next chapter of mobility.

But one thing is clear: Brussels isn’t waiting anymore. Europe wants back in the race.

Source: Reuters; Photo: Shutterstock, EPA