Sawt Falasteen - Uber and Wayve set to launch first UK robotaxis in summer

The rollout would make Wayve the first company to launch a commercial autonomous taxi service in Britain, ahead of rivals Waymo, owned by Google-parent Alphabet, and China's Baidu.

"We're hopeful to be launching in the next couple of months. We're ready to go. We're just waiting for a couple last approvals," Kaity Fischer, Wayve's vice president of commercial and operations, told AFP.

Self-driving taxis are already in operation in the United States and in China, but a commercial deployment in London would be a first in Europe.

Uber on Monday opened an interest list for UK customers who want to be among the first to receive updates when the service launches in the coming months.

Customers will have to wait a little longer for fully driverless taxi rides, however, as Wayve plans to launch the vehicles with an operator behind the wheel.

"At launch, a licensed operator will be on board monitoring behind the wheel, as part of our phased introduction," the company said in a press release.

Wayve added that fully driverless operations will begin "in the future," without specifying a timeframe.

Founded in 2017, Wayve is a pioneer in the development of AI embedded in vehicles, which learns from the environment by processing data from sensors instead of relying on pre-mapped routes.

"Wayve's AI learns from experience like a human driver, enabling it to adapt to new roads, vehicles, weather conditions," the company said.

"While we're starting our launch here in London, we'll quickly be expanding to Tokyo and ten more cities afterwards," said Fischer.

Chinese internet giant Baidu, in partnership with ride-sharing app Lyft, also plans to launch a driverless taxi service in the British capital.

So, too, does Waymo, the world leader in driverless vehicles.

Their authorisation depends on implementation of a law on automated vehicles that entered force in 2024.

B.Mahmoud--SF-PST