Wayve and Uber launch autonomous rides in London

Wayve and Uber have launched their announced autonomous ride service in London. However, a safety driver remains onboard for the initial period.

Londoners can now book Wayve’s autonomous vehicles through the Uber app. The service is available for UberX, Uber Electric, and Uber Comfort at no additional cost according to the company. Rides are available throughout London except at the airports.

Battery-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles equipped with “Wayve AI Driver” along with cameras and other environmental sensors are used for this service. Passengers can accept a Wayve ride offered in advance or switch to a regular Uber ride. Only a small number of vehicles are operating at launch, though the partners do not specify an exact fleet size. Additionally, the service is not fully driverless at first; a trained and Transport for London (TfL) licensed driver remains on board to monitor the ride and intervene if necessary. Therefore, the partners refer to it as “supervised autonomous rides.”

The launch follows the issuance of Private Hire Vehicle licenses for several Wayve vehicles in August. As electrive reported, Uber and Wayve thus met an important part of the regulatory requirements, while further approvals for fully driverless operation were still pending.

Interest in the service has meanwhile increased: In August, according to Uber, more than 100,000 Londoners registered for autonomous rides. Now, according to the companies, over 140,000 users have enabled this option in the app.

London is the first market for a larger partnership between Wayve and Uber. The partners aim to deploy Wayve’s technology in twelve markets in the future. This year, a service using the Nissan Leaf and Wayve’s AI driving system based on Nvidia Drive Hyperion is also set to launch in Tokyo. The companies have not yet specified when driverless services might become available in London.