Autonomous driving: Uber and partner company get robotaxi license in London

London is emerging as a battleground for the robotaxi race in Europe. Ride-hailing aggregator Uber and its software partner Wayve have secured an initial license to transport passengers using autonomous vehicles in the UK capital. Initially, some converted Ford Mustang electric cars will operate with safety drivers behind the wheel.

The first selected passengers are expected to be transported over the summer, the companies announced. According to Uber, more than 100,000 Londoners expressed interest in using a robotaxi through the platform. Even Waymo, Google's sister company, which leads the way in robotaxis, announced its entry into London this year, though a specific date has not been announced yet.

Waymo operates nearly 4,000 driverless vehicles in 15 US cities, with over 500,000 paid rides by its vehicles weekly. Chinese firm Baidu also recently began testing driverless cars in London. Uber aims to be a platform for various robotaxis, having once developed its own autonomous driving technology but abandoned it after a fatal accident during a test drive, focusing instead on bringing robotaxis from different developers onto its platform.

In some US cities, Waymo vehicles are also available through Uber. Together with software developer Nuro and electric vehicle manufacturer Lucid, Uber plans to send around 20,000 of its own cars onto the roads, challenging human drivers on the platform. While most autonomous driving developers hail from the US or China, Wayve is a British firm, with its unique approach being to learn software from human behavior.