Uber Technologies and Wayve just launched on 3 September at London autonomous robotaxi trips, which are supervised for now. Users requesting an UberX, Uber Electric or Uber Comfort ride can now be matched with a Wayve vehicle, at no extra cost compared to a standard ride, with the fare displayed in advance in the app.
The service relies on electric Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles equipped with Wayve's Driver AI and 360-degree sensors. The on-board experience, designed by Uber, includes an interactive screen available in 64 languages to track the planned route. The passenger remains in control: they can accept or decline the autonomous ride before the vehicle arrives, and then unlock the doors and start the trip from the app, just like a regular ride.
A phased rollout, under human supervision
At this stage, each vehicle remains the responsibility of a Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) driver licensed by Transport for London (TfL), who is present on board to supervise the trip. The service covers the whole of London, with the exception of airport journeys, and Uber plans to gradually scale up the number of vehicles, depending on demand and the regulatory framework. More than 140,000 Londoners had already signed up for priority access to these trips via the ride preferences in the app.« This is a major milestone for the future of transport in London, with British innovation bringing this technology to our roads and offering more choice to passengers », promises Heidi Alexander, Transport Secretary. Jonathan Reynolds, Business and Trade Secretary, for his part hailed a technology « designed in the UK », which according to him demonstrates « the country's ability to be a true global leader in AI transformation ".
London, first stage of a roll-out across twelve markets
This launch is part of a broader partnership between Uber and Wayve, which involves the integration of vehicles equipped with Wayve's technology across twelve markets worldwide, with London leading the way. Designed to be independent of vehicle model and sensor configuration, Wayve's technology is subsequently set to be fitted to a Nissan Leaf to Tokyo by the end of the year, this time with the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion platform.
Based and trained since 2018 on the roads of London, Wayve technology must now face competition from Waymo (Alphabet), which began its own trials in the British capital in late 2025 with a view to a competing commercial launch. For companies whose employees travel to London, this launch introduces a new transport option to monitor regarding duty of care, even though human supervision on board and the ability to cancel the autonomous ride before the vehicle arrives limit, for now, the change in usage compared to a conventional private hire vehicle.
