{"id":670662,"date":"2026-01-03T07:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670662\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T07:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:08:09","slug":"london-emerges-as-frontline-in-us-china-battle-over-robotaxis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670662\/","title":{"rendered":"London emerges as frontline in US-China battle over robotaxis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s two biggest driverless car groups plan to launch robotaxis in London in 2026, as the UK capital emerges as the latest battleground between the US and China over artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Silicon Valley-based Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, began road-testing customised autonomous Jaguar models<\/a> in London in December. <\/p>\n

Beijing-based Baidu is expected to launch its RT6 cars in the city in the coming months after striking partnerships with US ride-hailing groups Lyft and Uber. <\/p>\n

The groups have accelerated plans for British launches after the UK government announced it would allow commercial trials of driverless cars<\/a> this spring.<\/p>\n

Those moves mean London<\/a> is likely to become the first city where both US and Chinese robotaxis operate, as the companies\u2019 aggressive global expansion plans lead to direct competition. <\/p>\n

Jack Stilgoe, a technology policy professor at University College London, said the development offers an opportunity for the UK.<\/p>\n

Britain wants to be \u201cthe place that slowly writes the rules for this technology that isn\u2019t the Wild West of Silicon Valley or the wild east of Beijing\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n

While groups such as Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla and London-based Wayve are expected to provide competition over time, Waymo and Baidu have established themselves as the AV market leaders. <\/p>\n

Waymo\u2019s robotaxis are nearing 1mn fully autonomous rides every week and its customers in US cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix have taken almost 20mn rides in total to date. Baidu\u2019s Apollo Go is catching up, hitting 17mn cumulative rides in November. <\/p>\n

Waymo and Baidu see London as key to their international growth strategies. Chinese automakers and tech companies are largely barred from operating driverless vehicles in the US under restrictions introduced in the final days of the Biden administration. Chinese AV groups have instead been looking to Europe and the Middle East to test their systems. <\/p>\n

Despite ongoing tensions between Washington and Beijing over large language models \u2014 the AI systems that power Google\u2019s Gemini and OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT \u2014 there has so far been less political blowback for American groups working with Chinese driverless car companies.<\/p>\n

Uber and Lyft are working with several Chinese autonomous vehicle companies, including Baidu, Pony.ai and WeRide, outside the US. <\/p>\n

\u201cSelf-driving cars will bring a lot of benefits to society mainly in the form of safety, but we need to recognise that China is already well ahead of us [in the US and Europe],\u201d said Alex Ferrara, a London-based tech investor with Bessemer Venture Partners. <\/p>\n

However, it is unclear how Waymo and Baidu\u2019s momentum will continue on the complex and congested streets of London.<\/p>\n

Stilgoe pointed to the problem of zebra crossings for pedestrians, which are common in the UK but rare in the US. Many members of the public are sceptical of AV companies\u2019 safety claims, he added. <\/p>\n

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Ferrara said there remain \u201cnational security risks associated with self-driving vehicles\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese cars are essentially mobile AI super computers,\u201d he said. \u201cUnder the control of an adversarial government, they could be used for sensitive information gathering \u2014 perhaps recording your conversations while in the car, blocking roads and traffic, or could even be used for a kinetic attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeremy Bird, executive vice-president for global growth at Lyft, said Baidu\u2019s \u201cextensive track record\u201d would bring \u201csafety, reliability and privacy to millions of Europeans\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll make sure data processing and sharing between Lyft and Baidu complies with applicable laws to ensure we create an AV future that thrives in the UK,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Waymo said data collected by its sensors \u201cis used solely to develop and validate our safety-critical autonomous driving technology\u201d. <\/p>\n

In London, companies seeking to trial driverless technology must engage with the mayor, boroughs and Transport for London. A further licence is required to operate a commercial passenger service, and all trials must comply with UK data protection and privacy regulations. <\/p>\n

\u201cSafety is our top priority, and we are interested in learning more about technologies that could potentially help deliver safety benefits for all road users,\u201d TfL said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-670662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115829912595814224","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}