Uber and British autonomous driving startup Wayve on Thursday launched a commercial robotaxi service in London, though a human safety operator remains behind the wheel for now.
Wendy Lee, Uber’s head of product, said the rollout would start small, with the fleet numbering “in the order of dozens” as the service scales up in phases.
The launch puts Wayve ahead of rivals Waymo — owned by Google parent Alphabet — and China’s Baidu, which has teamed up with Lyft, in the race to bring robotaxis to the UK capital. London becomes only the second European city with autonomous taxis on its streets, after Zagreb, where Croatian firm Verne runs a similar service using Chinese company Pony.ai’s technology, also with an onboard supervisor.
During a demonstration for AFP, an operator briefly took manual control at an intersection near Big Ben — a reminder of why safety personnel remain in the vehicles for now. Kaity Fischer, Wayve’s head of business development, said the setup exists specifically to keep passengers safe as the technology matures.
Neither Uber nor Wayve could say exactly when fully driverless rides would begin. Waymo, for its part, said it hopes to run vehicles with no one behind the wheel by year-end, pending regulatory approval, while Lyft — which plans a 2027 launch with Baidu’s Apollo Go — is waiting on guidance from Transport for London. TfL said that guidance is expected soon, adding that no operator has yet begun the approval process for fully autonomous vehicles.
For now, Uber and Wayve hold safety authorisation for 15 supervised vehicles, and fares will match standard Uber rates. The London debut marks Wayve’s first mass-market rollout; the company says Tokyo is next, with plans to expand to 10 more cities alongside Uber.
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