Bulgaria's Volt Premium Taxi has partnered with US autonomous vehicle developer Tensor to deploy an initial fleet of 200 fully autonomous robotaxis in the capital Sofia, the companies said on September 22.

The order is part of a longer-term plan to deploy up to 2,000 Tensor vehicles across the region, with Bulgaria serving as the launch market, the companies said in a press release.

The companies described the project as the first fully autonomous robotaxi fleet in Eastern Europe. Volt said the service would target mid-to-high-end customers and early adopters of new technology.

"The future of urban transit isn't just electric, it's autonomous and around-the-clock," Volt founder Oggy Popov said.

Volt will build and operate dedicated infrastructure in Sofia to service and maintain the vehicles, the companies said.

The robotaxis will use Tensor's Level 4 autonomous driving technology, which is designed to handle all driving tasks without human intervention within defined operating conditions.

Tensor Chief Executive Jay Xiao said the vehicles were designed with full-stack redundancy and for commercial fleet operations.

The companies said the project would eventually expand to other markets in the region, but did not provide a timetable for the Sofia launch or details of the expected investment.

They said regulatory frameworks for autonomous vehicles were being finalised at both the European Union and local levels.

Tensor said its technology ecosystem includes partnerships with chipmaker NVIDIA, cloud computing company Oracle and semiconductor designer Arm.