Wayve's self-driving technology is based on an AI learning model rather than the mapping used by some rivals. Wayve's self-driving technology is based on an AI learning model rather than the mapping used by some rivals. London's first self-driving taxis for hire hit the streets Londoners are now able to hire self-driving taxis for the first time, after rides in Wayve's autonomous vehicles were added to the Uber app on Thursday. The chances of landing a robotaxi on request immediately are slim, with only 15 vehicles so far licensed. That contrasts with the more than 100,000 private hire vehicles in the capital - roughly the same number of Uber customers who have registered to take autonomous rides.

Uber launches UK's first robotaxis with a driver - here's what it's like to ride in one Londoners are able to hail the UK's first robotaxis - as Uber today becomes the first company to launch a self-driving minicab. Initially, it only has 15 autonomous vehicles with a licence to operate in the city, and each one must have a human safety driver behind the wheel ready to take control if anything goes wrong. Uber said it surveyed London-based customers via the app and more than 100,000 said they would choose a self-driving taxi if one was available, despite incidents of driverless rides malfunctioning in US cities where they already operate. As I found out when I became the first UK journalist to hail one, it was mostly smooth but the safety driver did intervene on one occasion. At the moment the UK fare for a robotaxi ride will be the same fare as a standard UberX, Uber Electric, or Uber Comfort journey, with upfront fares shown in the app.

'Leicester Square, please guv': Self-driving taxis cleared for London streets'later this summer' The taxi app company Uber and the autonomous technology developer Wayve have been granted the first minicab licences in London allowing them to offer self-driving taxi rides to paying customers - but with a human safety driver in place, for now. The companies said they would start trips in the UK "later this summer" before the full public launch. The San Francisco-headquartered Uber and London-based Wayve are racing against the Google-owned Waymo and its Chinese equivalent Baidu's Apollo Go to launch self-driving taxi services in London. Their progress is being watched closely because the British capital will be one of the first cities in the world to have American and Chinese tech firms operating on the same roads. Uber and Wayve said more than 100,000 Londoners were on their waiting list for the self-driving taxis.

The company's robotaxi service is supposed to launch in the US capital this year. But while service rollouts have been relatively smooth in other cities, DC's rules have made things tricky. Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary that develops self-driving vehicle tech, has picked up speed. The company now operates robotaxis in six cities and has announced plans to launch in a dozen others this year. It j ust raised $16 billion in a new round of funding and says it has served over 20 million rides since the company launched its service in 2020, 14 million of them in 2025 alone.

Robotaxis could start operating in regulated public trials as early as spring 2026 - but the rules are yet to be fully established, and testing may include a safety driver for some time. Robotaxis could start operating in regulated public trials as early as spring 2026 - but the rules are yet to be fully established, and testing may include a safety driver for some time. The age-old question from the back of the car feels just as pertinent as a new era of autonomy threatens to dawn: are we nearly there yet? For Britons, long-promised fully driverless cars, the answer is as ever - yes, nearly. A landmark moment on the journey to autonomous driving is, again, just around the corner.

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.

Forrester analyst Paul Miller described the launch of the pilot as a "low-key affair". "As expected, only a handful of vehicles are available right now, they only operate in a small part of the city and there's a safety driver in the vehicle in case it encounters situations it cannot handle autonomously," he said. But he added that the move highlighted the company's ambitions to rival firms already offering driverless ride-hailing in the US and around the world. Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, along with Amazon's Zoox, already offer self-driving taxi rides in Austin, as well as in San Francisco, California, and Phoenix, Arizona. Meanwhile Uber, which recently announced it would bring forward trials of driverless taxis in the UK, has partnered with Chinese firms Pony.AI, WeRide and Momenta to bring autonomous ride-hailing to more cities outside the US and China.

After nearly a decade of waiting, Tesla has launched a limited self-driving car service in the Austin, Texas, area. Company executives, including Musk, have said the autonomous vehicle technology debuting today is critical to Tesla's future. The limited service, which for now is only open to early users invited by Tesla, includes some 20 2025 Model Y sedans available for rides through a Tesla-made app between 6 and 12 am. Terms of service posted on X by invited riders indicate that the service will be paused or limited for bad weather. Rides during this invite-only phase are available for a flat 4.20 fee, Musk posted on X Sunday.

They rumble down the highway between Beijing and Tianjin port: big lorries, loaded up and fully able to navigate themselves. Sure, there is a safety driver in the seat, as per government regulations, but these lorries don't require them, and many analysts say it won't take long before they are gone. When "safety driver" Huo Kangtian, 32, first takes his hands off the wheel, and lets the lorry drive itself, it is somehow impressive and disconcerting in equal measures. For the initial stages of the journey, he is in full control. Then - at a certain point - he hits a few buttons, and the powerful, heavy machine is driving itself, moving at speed along a public road to Tianjin.

Apple's secretive vehicle project doesn't have much to show for its six years of work, at least publicly. But records submitted by the company to a California agency show that Apple went on an autonomous testing jag last year, almost quadrupling the number of miles it tested on public roads compared to 2022, and jumping 2021's total by a factor of more than 30. The data covers December 2022 to November 2023. The majority of the testing miles were in the second half of the reporting period, with miles tested peaking in August at 83,900. Apple currently has a permit to test autonomous vehicle tech on California's public roads only if the company has a safety driver behind the wheel--a first step that allows autonomous vehicle companies to collect more data on streets and determine how their software handles itself in traffic.