The UK government has announced plans to begin trialing self-driving taxi services on the roads, as there was blowback in LA, where several self-driving Waymo vehicles were torched.
Several vehicles flare up Sunday in protest of the US immigration and customs enforcement raids in Los Angeles and the Trump administration's deployment of the National Guard into the region.
London's initial plans include a limited number of autonomous vehicles on certain roads included in the capital, as proposed by the Transportation Authority.
The government aims to enable businesses to fully launch autonomous taxi services in the second half of 2027.
Authorities have made it clear that safety will prioritize everything else.
“We are not allowed to deploy this technology on roads, unless we are truly convinced that strict safety testing is met,” said Marco Barbato, a spokesman for the Transportation Department.
The major taxi companies quickly announced their interest. Both Uber in the US and Wayve based in the UK say they are interested in becoming partners so they can jointly leverage plans to launch self-driving cars on London roads.
Wayve CEO Alex Kendall acknowledges that testing in busy cities like London can be a challenging environment.
“This isn't Phoenix, Arizona,” he said. It mentioned the city the company first launched. “This isn't a grid-like city in a desert where the sun always shines. London is a medieval structured environment. There are seven times more Jay Walkers than San Francisco.”
He said early testing could show that the company is “scalable and reliable.”
The partnership allows customers to call Wayve Cars using the Uber app. This is already how the setup between Uber and Google's Waymo in Austin, Texas, and Motional, which is related to Uber and Hyundai in Las Vegas, is working.
“Our vision is to make autonomy a safe and reliable option for riders everywhere. This ordeal brings that future closer to reality,” said Uber president and COO Andrew MacDonald.
This is not the first time a tech startup has hit London Street. The city has already seen Israeli company Mobileye test collision technology on buses. Additionally, Oxa, a UK-based self-driving car manufacturer, is testing its technology in Oxford and London.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
