Chinese robotaxis could be set to hit UK roads in 2026 as ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft announce partnerships with Baidu to trial the tech. The two companies are hoping to obtain approval from regulators to test the autonomous vehicles in London. Baidu's Apollo Go driverless taxi service already operates in dozens of cities, mostly in China, and has accrued millions of rides without a human behind the wheel. Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said the news was another vote of confidence in our plans for self-driving vehicles - but many remain sceptical about their safety. We're planning for self-driving cars to carry passengers for the first time from spring, under our pilot scheme - harnessing this technology safely and responsibly to transform travel, Ms Alexander said in a post on X .

Is London ready for driverless taxis? Autonomous cabs are a staple in some US cities - but how will they cope with London's streets? Will ghost taxis put a whole workforce out of a job? Will British passengers behave themselves without a human driver in the front seat - and can the technology really be trusted to keep people safe?

Driverless taxis from Waymo will be on London's roads next year, US firm announces Wed 15 Oct 2025 05.00 EDTLast modified on Wed 15 Oct 2025 05.02 EDT Driverless taxis from Waymo will be available for hire on London's roads next year, the US company has announced. The UK capital will become the first European city to have an autonomous taxi service of the kind now familiar in San Francisco and four other US cities using Waymo's technology. Waymo said its cars were now on their way to London and would start driving on the capital's streets in the coming weeks with "trained human specialists", or safety drivers, behind the wheel. The company - originally formed as a spin-off from Google's self-driving car programme and part of the same parent group, Alphabet - said it would scale up operations and work closely with the Department for Transport and Transport for London to obtain the necessary permissions to offer fully autonomous rides in 2026. Uber and the UK tech company Wayve have also announced their own plans to trial their driverless taxis in the capital next year, after the British government said it would accelerate rules allowing public trials to take place before legislation enabling self-driving vehicles passes in full.

Self-driving Ubers are expected to appear on roads in London next year after the government said trials of fully autonomous vehicles would be brought forward to spring 2026. Companies will be allowed to run pilots of small-scale taxi or "bus-like" services for public use – and, for the first time in Europe, without any human safety driver onboard or in the driving seat. Uber will partner with the UK tech firm Wayve to launch trials of taxis bookable via its app in the capital, its largest European market. A fuller rollout of self-driving taxis, or robotaxis, will come after the Automated Vehicles Act fully takes effect in late 2027. The UK has sped up the process now that driverless taxis have become established in San Francisco in the US and numerous cities in China. Uber rolled out its first driverless taxis with the US firm Waymo in Austin, Texas, in March this year, where Tesla is also planning to launch a rival autonomous service this month.

Uber launched a robotaxi service in Austin, Texas in March and said its driverless vehicles could work for 20 hours per day, seven days per week. Customers there can choose whether to take a robotaxi if there is one available, with no difference in fare. Tesla is planning to launch a rival service in the same city in June. Fully driverless cars have done millions of miles on public roads in other countries too, including China, UAE and Singapore, but whether they are more or less safe than human-driven ones is still being investigated. Numerous studies suggest automated vehicles are less accident-prone than human drivers, based on US data.

Driverless cars are beginning to display human-like behaviors like impatience on the roads, in a sign of increased intelligence in the robotaxis. The chilling development was identified by University of San Francisco engineering Professor William Riggs, who has been studying Waymo cars since their inception. On a journey with a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle, the pair noticed the Waymo they were traveling in crept to a rolling start at a pedestrian crossing before the person had reached the other footpath. The subtle movement was reminiscent of the way humans act behind the wheel, but a strange occurrence for the robotic Waymo, which prides itself on being safer than a driver because it errs on the side of caution and leaves no room for human error. The action of letting the foot gently off the break moments before they should to allow the car to begin creeping forward at a rolling pace displays a sense of impatience - a human reaction not previously seen in the robotic cars.

Age: Founded in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project. How futuristic – and they've been working on this since 2009? Actually, it goes back to 2004 and a prototype autonomous car built by Stanford University. The Google project became known as Waymo in 2016. Any idea how many more years until we see the first self-driving taxis? They already have them in San Francisco, LA and Phoenix, among other places.

A driverless ride-hailing car in China hit a pedestrian, and people on social media are taking the carmaker's side, because the person was reportedly crossing against the light. The operator of the vehicle, Chinese tech giant Baidu, said in a statement to Chinese media that the car began moving when the light turned green and had minor contact with the pedestrian. The person was taken to a hospital where an examination found no obvious external injuries, Baidu said. The incident on Sunday in the city of Wuhan highlights the challenge that autonomous driving faces in complex situations, the Chinese financial news outlet Yicai said. It quoted an expert saying the technology may have limitations when dealing with unconventional behavior such as other vehicles or pedestrians that violate traffic laws.

Cruise, General Motors' beleaguered driverless taxi service, announced Tuesday that it will start picking up fares again around Houston. Cruise announced that they would start with human taxi drivers behind the wheels of its cars before moving to "supervised autonomous driving with a safety driver behind the wheel in the coming weeks." The announcement from Cruise landed around the same time that General Motors' chief financial officer Paul Jacobson announced at Deutsche Bank's Global Auto Industry Conference in New York City that the carmaker would inject another 850 million into the robotaxi company to cover operational costs. Cruise has been nothing but a huge money pit for GM. Last year, the company plugged the plug on its driverless taxis when one of its cars in its San Francisco fleet hit a pedestrian who was hurled into the driverless taxi's path by another vehicle and dragged them approximately 20 feet after getting pinned under its tire.

Waymo is launching its driverless taxi service in Los Angeles tomorrow after a stream of crashes. Angelenos will be able to sign up for Waymo's waitlist to be the first to ride in the fully autonomous vehicles after years of testing. 'Once an unimaginable future, autonomous driving is now a real-world way of getting around for tens of thousands of people each week,' said Waymo co-CEO, Tekedra Mawakana. 'After achieving key milestones in each city, we're so excited to bring the safety, comfort and delight of our Waymo One service to more people in Los Angeles and Austin this year.' Although Waymo is rolling out its taxi service in LA, it is still conducting fully autonomous testing in Austin, Texas and is expected to become available to public riders later this year.