UK Greenlights Robotaxis: Wayve & Uber Launch Public Road Trials
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London just hit the gas on fully autonomous vehicles.
Wayve, the UK-based autonomous driving startup, has officially launched public road trials of Level 4 self-driving cars in partnership with Uber.
The milestone was shared by Wayve CEO Alex Kendall, who called it a “defining moment for autonomy in our home market.” And he’s not wrong.
This marks the UK’s most advanced deployment of AI-driven vehicles to date, and it’s backed by heavyweight support; Uber, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the Secretary of State for Transport all gave it the green light.
Why It Matters
Most autonomous vehicle players like Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox are still battling for limited rollout rights in the U.S.
Wayve’s UK trials mark a rare case where Europe (and particularly the UK) is leading the way in real-world, city-level AV testing.
Even better: this isn’t a one-city stunt. As part of a global “90 cities in 90 days” campaign, Wayve has already shown its AI Driver can generalize across unfamiliar roads, weather, and layouts without re-mapping every intersection.
This also puts Wayve on a shortlist of serious European contenders — many of which we covered in our recent piece 👉 Europe’s Autonomous Driving Reality Check and What Comes Next
More Than a Driving Bot
Unlike many competitors building hard-coded driving logic, Wayve’s bet is on end-to-end AI — a model that learns like a human and scales across geographies.
The goal? Autonomy that adapts, not autonomy that needs custom code for every new city.
That flexibility is exactly what Uber needs if it wants robotaxis to scale.
The Big Picture
- The UK is serious about competing on AVs and AI
- Public road testing is moving faster than regulators predicted
- Uber sees robotaxis as a core part of its future (again)
As Alex Kendall put it:
“We can’t afford to take a back seat on AI… unless it’s on a self-driving bus.”
⚡️ Charging Stack Hot Take
Wayve may be the quietest AV player in the game, but it just pulled off one of the loudest moves in global autonomy.
Level 4 on public roads. In London. With Uber.
Let’s see who follows.
