European Autonomous Driving: Inside Niulinx and the Robosharing Model

Europe has no autonomous driving champion. Luca Foresti wants to change that, without copying the American robotaxi.

Daniel sits down with Luca Foresti, CEO and founder of Niulinx, a Politecnico di Milano spin-off that just raised 38 million euros, the largest autonomous driving round in Italy to date.

Instead of chasing a full robotaxi, Niulinx is building "Robosharing":

you call a car with an app, it drives to you autonomously at up to 30 km/h, you take the wheel and drive yourself, then it returns to the fleet. The bet is that this model trades billions in capex for a fraction of the cost in opex, and reaches European homologation faster.

In this episode:

• What Robosharing is and why it fits Europe's roads, regulation, and capital reality
• The regulatory-native approach to EU type approval and homologation
• The franchising business model and a single shared remote operations station
• Retrofitting the Fiat 500e and the case for L7 two-seater vehicles
• End-to-end AI versus a modular stack
• Why Europe lags on AV, the OEM incentive problem, and a 2030 outlook

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Intro: Why Europe has no AV champion

1:23 - From lab to company: the Politecnico di Milano spin-off

2:45 - Why Foresti left healthcare for autonomous driving

5:17 - 12 co-founders and a team averaging 27

6:37 - What Niulinx sells: "Robo Sharing" explained

10:08 - Is Robo Sharing a stepping stone to robotaxi?

12:04 - Make vs. buy: the in-house software stack

13:19 - Retrofitting the Fiat 500e — and watching L7 vehicles

16:29 - What "regulatory native" actually means

19:22 - End-to-end AI vs. the modular stack

22:32 - Keeping European talent in Europe

24:00 - Chinese players in Europe and the home-turf edge

25:41 - Geographic footprint: Italy, Germany, and beyond

27:22 - Where European AV regulation stands today

28:56 - Will Niulinx ever partner with a carmaker?

31:02 - The real cost of retrofitting a car

32:59 - The €38M raise — how far does it get you?

35:11 - How the capital is allocated

36:45 - Why Europe has no AV champion (the honest answer)

39:52 - Should Europe restrict Chinese virtual-driver companies?

41:46 - Autonomous mobility in Europe by 2030

44:02 - Does this technology threaten the OEM business model?

46:34 - Closing

LINKS

The AV Market Strategist (newsletter) - https://avmarketstrategist.substack.com

Autonomy Insiders on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7KilrHXFnMqafvtLMQDWXw

Autonomy Insiders on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/autonomy-insiders/id1883492805

#AutonomousDriving #Robotaxi #Niulinx #AVIndustry #SelfDriving