Updated Oct. 25, 2026, 11:17 p.m. ET: Adds Uber’s start of robotaxi testing in Manchester with Pony.ai and Verne in mid-October, The Guardian reported.
Riders in London can now be matched with a self-driving car when they book an UberX, Uber Comfort or Uber Electric trip. Uber and British startup Wayve launched the city’s first public robotaxi service on Wednesday, with a trained safety operator in the driver’s seat of every car.
The fleet is small. Uber has 15 autonomous vehicles licensed to operate in the city, BBC News reported, all electric Ford Mustang Mach-Es fitted with Wayve’s AI Driver. Fares match a standard ride and are shown upfront. Riders are told when they’ve been matched with an autonomous car and can switch to a human driver instead, or turn on a setting to get more autonomous rides, CNET reported.
No HD maps
Wayve’s system uses cameras and radar for 360-degree visibility rather than relying on high-definition maps and hand-coded rules. The company says its foundation models let the AI Driver “adapt to new roads, vehicles, weather conditions and cities with unprecedented speed and efficiency.”
“We’re proud to introduce the Wayve AI Driver to the public for the first time right here in London, our home city and one of the most complex driving environments in the world,” Wayve CEO and co-founder Alex Kendall said in a statement.
The BBC’s Zoe Kleinman, the first UK journalist to hail one as a customer, described a mostly smooth ride with one intervention. When the back doors of a parked van appeared to swing open on a narrow side street, the car braked sharply and the safety driver took the wheel. Wayve said the intervention was the driver’s call and that it was confident its system would have handled it.
Licensed, with a human aboard
Transport for London granted private hire licences to the vehicles in August on the condition that a qualified driver is present and remains responsible for the car, the BBC reported at the time. That completed the “triple-lock” requirement under which operator, driver and vehicle must all hold licences. Running without a driver will need separate approval from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. A Department for Transport spokesperson said the government is working toward a framework that would let self-driving cars on the roads in 2027.
Wayve manages the fleet at launch, and Otto Car oversees the safety drivers through its subsidiary AV Operations Ltd. Uber handles rider support and will eventually take over day-to-day fleet operations. Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s global head of autonomous mobility and delivery, told the BBC the cars will be phased in over several years. “We expect that there will be human drivers on Uber London for a long time to come,” he said.
Rivals are close behind. Waymo has been testing in London for months and aims to launch there this year pending approval, and Baidu also wants to launch in the UK. Uber and Wayve plan to start self-driving trips in Nissan Leafs in Tokyo later this year. Uber has since begun testing other partners’ robotaxis in Manchester.
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