Londoners can now book autonomous vehicles from Wayve via the Uber app. The service is available for UberX, Uber Electric, and Uber Comfort at no additional cost, according to the company. Rides are possible throughout the entire London urban area, excluding airports.
The vehicles used are battery-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E models equipped with the Wayve AI Driver, as well as cameras and additional environmental sensors. Passengers can accept an offered Wayve ride in advance or switch to a conventional Uber. At launch, only a small number of vehicles are on the road, though the partners have not specified the exact fleet size. Additionally, the service is not yet fully driverless: a trained and Transport for London (TfL)-licensed driver remains on board to monitor the trip and intervene if necessary. The partners therefore refer to these as “supervised autonomous rides”.
The launch follows Private Hire Vehicle licences being issued in August for several Wayve vehicles. As electrive reported at the time, Uber and Wayve fulfilled an important part of the regulatory requirements, although further approvals for fully driverless operations are still pending.
Interest in the service has grown in the meantime: in August, more than 100,000 Londoners had registered for autonomous rides via Uber. Meanwhile, according to the companies, over 140,000 users have now activated the corresponding option in the app.
