U.K.-based autonomous vehicle technology company Wayve and Uber plan to launch a fully driverless robotaxi service in London in the coming years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The news comes soon after the U.K.\u2019s announcement of an accelerated framework for self-driving commercial pilots. U.K. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander confirmed Tuesday that the U.K. government would fast-track pilots to spring 2026, up from late 2027, to incentivize investment in autonomy in the country.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wayve and Uber did not share many details of their upcoming launch, such as when exactly the companies would begin trials and service, with how many vehicles, or via which vehicle manufacturer partner or partners. Wayve said in April that its tech would be headed to Nissan vehicles<\/a>.<\/p>\n The announcement follows Uber\u2019s strategic investment into Wayve<\/a> in 2024 that promised to see the startup\u2019s AI integrated into consumer vehicles that will one day operate on Uber\u2019s platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n A Wayve spokesperson told TechCrunch the companies would start in the U.K. capital and scale out to greater London and beyond from there. First, every company involved in launching a robotaxi service would need to prove relevant safety cases to regulators.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a partner ecosystem for bringing a service to market,\u201d Sarah Gates, Wayve\u2019s director of public policy, told TechCrunch. \u201cWayve provides driving intelligence integrated into a base vehicle provided by a vehicle manufacturer, and then we would have a fleet operator, and Uber would operate the service. So each part of that supply chain would need to prove safety and responsible deployment for what they\u2019re responsible for.\u201d<\/p>\n In Wayve\u2019s case, the company needs to prove the safety of the system and how it drives within its operational design domain. Uber would have separate commitments around operating a passenger service responsibly and having things like customer service in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a defining moment for U.K. autonomy,\u201d Alex Kendall, Wayve\u2019s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. \u201cWith Uber and our global OEM partner, we\u2019re preparing to put our AI Driver technology into real service on the streets of London, delivering on our AV2.0 vision for scalable autonomy. Our Embodied AI learns to drive anywhere, in any vehicle, and this trial brings us closer to bringing safe and intelligent driving to everyday rides across the UK and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n