EVwire brief: Wayve and Uber have cleared a key regulatory step toward driverless rides in London. Transport for London has granted Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) licenses to a batch of Wayve's autonomous, all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E cars after inspecting them against TfL's safety and policy standards.
The licenses complete the "triple-lock" that London requires for private-hire trips, where the operator, the driver and the vehicle must all be licensed by the same authority. The cars, fitted with Wayve's AI Driver plus surround cameras and radar, will handle the driving under the UK government's AV trialling code and Uber's private-hire operator license, with a trained, TfL-licensed safety driver onboard to supervise and take over if needed.
Wayve's AI Driver leans on cameras and radar rather than pre-built HD maps, which the company says helps it adapt across cities.
Demand is already there. More than 100,000 Londoners have joined Uber's interest list in the past eight weeks for a shot at an early ride. Later this summer, a select group from that list will start taking trips and giving feedback while the two companies fine-tune the experience ahead of a full public launch.
“This license is an important step towards giving Londoners the chance to experience autonomous driving technology. The responsible deployment of these vehicles will bring us safer, cleaner and quieter streets, and we’re proud to continue working alongside regulators, communities, and the public as we take the next steps towards making autonomous rides a reality in the capital.”
Uber's Annie Duvnjak, its global head of autonomous mobility operations, called the license "a key milestone in bringing autonomous rides to London," pointing to what she described as an "incredible response" to the interest list for Wayve's British-built technology.
Wayve has been testing its autonomous driving on London's streets since 2018.
Context:
The London rollout is the front line of a much bigger push. Wayve and Uber have been lining up autonomous rides in London, Tokyo and other cities, and in June the pair joined Stellantis in a deal to build and deploy Level 4 robotaxis globally. For Uber, Wayve is one of more than 30 autonomy partners it is stitching into a "hybrid" network of robots and human drivers.
Wayve's edge, in its telling, is its "AV2.0" approach: an AI driver that learns from experience rather than leaning on HD maps, hand-coded rules or geofenced zones, which the company says lets it adapt to new roads and cities far faster. It has been testing on London's notoriously tricky streets since 2018.
Source: Wayve
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