The Wayve’s robotaxi boss said it is “ready to go” as Uber prepares to begin using its systems in London.
Self-driving taxis will carry paying passengers for the first time on UK roads this summer, a company developing the technology said. Kaity Fischer, who leads Wayve’s robotaxi business, said it is “ready to go” as Uber prepares to begin using its systems in London.
A human driver will initially sit behind the wheel ready to take control during journeys while the technology is demonstrated to be safe. Uber passengers will be offered self-driving vehicles at the same charge as its conventional minicabs.
On Monday, the ride-hailing app company began enabling users to express their desire to be among the first people to try the new service. Self-driving vehicles will be available on Uber’s X, Comfort and Electric journeys.
Ms Fischer said: “We’re looking forward to launching in London in the next couple of months. We’re ready to go, and can’t wait to get the public into our vehicles to experience Wayve technology first hand.”
Cars with Wayve’s self-driving systems have six cameras, a radar and an AI-powered computer in the boot which control their responses. The human supervisor behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV did not need to intervene during a 15-minute demonstration journey from the company’s north London headquarters on Friday.
The car reacted sensibly to hazards such as pedestrians crossing the road and overtaking vehicles travelling towards it, and when the road was clear it went up to but not beyond the 20mph speed limit.
Wayve was founded in 2017 by two University of Cambridge PhD students. London will be the first city in the world to use its technology for commercial journeys.
The company will then expand to more than 10 cities globally in partnership with Uber, including Tokyo, Japan, later this year. Wayve is also working with car manufacturers such as Nissan and Stellantis to deploy its systems in private vehicles.
Ms Fischer described London’s roads as the “ultimate testing ground for autonomous technology”. She said that compared with San Francisco in the US – which is a common location for rolling out robotaxis – London has 20 times more roadworks and 10 times more vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists.
Combining that with London’s “2,000-year-old streets”, which are not in a grid layout and have “potholes and cobblestone paths”, creates an “incredible proving ground”, she added.
Annie Duvnjak, who leads global mobility autonomous operations at Uber, said it will launch with a “small fleet” of robotaxis in London, before “scaling up over time”.
Asked how she expects passengers in the capital to react, she replied: “What we’ve seen in other markets is it’s really magical. When you first get in, you look around and all of a sudden the car is driving and it feels normal. You forget that you’re in an autonomous vehicle (AV), and that’s the beauty of it.”
Uber already offers self-driving journeys in the US cities of Austin in Texas and Atlanta in Georgia. Some Uber drivers in London have held small-scale protests against the use of robotaxis.
In response to a question on whether the technology means fewer human drivers will be needed, Ms Duvnjak said: “We actually do believe that human drivers and AVs will continue to grow.
“That’s because… we do want to be really reliable. There’ll be multiple routes or weather conditions where it might not make sense for an AV to take a ride, and we are constantly seeing demand grow in cities, which means more drivers and more AVs over time.”
Waymo – a subsidiary of Google-owner Alphabet – has also been testing its self-driving minicabs in London, ahead of launching commercial services.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the technology has “the potential to transform how people travel” by “reducing road danger while driving growth and creating high-skilled jobs across the UK”.
She added: “Wayve is a British success story and this partnership with Uber is a welcome vote of confidence in their technology.”
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