Wayve autonomous taxis begin carrying Uber passengers in London
A 15-vehicle Wayve fleet has joined Uber’s London app with licensed safety drivers aboard, marking the city’s first self-driving taxis available for public hire.
In short
- A 15-vehicle Wayve fleet has joined Uber’s London app with licensed safety drivers aboard, marking the city’s first self-driving taxis available for public hire.
London passengers can now request rides in Wayve autonomous vehicles through Uber, marking the first time self-driving taxis have been made available for public hire in the British capital.
The initial rollout is small. Transport for London has licensed 15 modified Ford Mustang vehicles as private-hire cars, compared with more than 100,000 private-hire vehicles operating across the city. About 100,000 Uber users have registered their interest in autonomous rides, meaning availability is likely to be limited during the launch.
Each vehicle will carry a licensed safety driver in the front seat who can take control if necessary. The current licence does not permit a fully driverless service: separate approval from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency would be required before the cars could operate without human supervision.
Wayve’s system uses an artificial-intelligence learning model to handle driving decisions rather than relying primarily on the detailed mapping approach used by some competitors. The company says the technology is still developing and plans eventually to move to manufacturer-produced Nissan Leaf vehicles equipped with its system, subject to safety validation and regulatory clearance.
The launch gives Uber and Wayve an early position in London while other autonomous-driving companies, including Waymo and Baidu, test vehicles in the city. Uber previously helped launch a commercial robotaxi service in Zagreb, Croatia, that also retained a human driver onboard.
Supporters say autonomous vehicles could eventually improve safety and lower passenger costs, although Uber acknowledged that current autonomous services are not yet cheaper to operate than conventional rides. Labour representatives have also warned that a wider driverless rollout could disrupt jobs in a sector that employs hundreds of thousands of people.
For now, the London service remains a supervised trial at commercial scale rather than a fully driverless network. Its expansion will depend on safety performance, vehicle production and further regulatory decisions.
