Driverless taxi services will begin testing on UK roads in 2026, with companies including Uber, Lyft and Waymo planning to test autonomous vehicles in London, subject to regulatory approval.
Uber and Lyft are preparing separate tests of driverless taxis in the capital through partnerships with Chinese technology company Baidu.
The trials are expected to take place at the same time, marking the first direct trials between major self-driving taxi operators from the United States (US) and China in a European city.
The launch follows Automated Vehicle Act of 2024which provides a legal framework for driverless vehicles and shifts responsibility for incidents from the person inside the vehicle to the “authorized autonomous entity.”
David Risher, Lyft’s CEO, said the company would use Apollo Go RT6 vehicles that are “designed specifically for ride-sharing.”
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In his words, “We hope to begin testing our initial fleet with dozens of vehicles next year, pending regulatory approval,” Risher said.
The company “plans to grow to hundreds from there,” he added.
According News from heavenAlphabet-owned Waymo has already begun supervised testing in London, while Baidu continues to expand globally, competing with firms like Waymo, whose vehicles have been spotted on city streets.
London-based startup Wayve is also planning driverless trials in 2026, supported by around $1 billion (£750m) in investments led by SoftBank Group and Uber. The company is testing what it describes as “mapless” artificial intelligence on London roads.
For Lyft, the UK trials are part of its international growth plans following its $200 million acquisition of European taxi app FreeNow earlier this year.
While driverless taxis already operate in cities such as San Francisco and Tokyo, their arrival in the UK has raised concerns among some drivers.
Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, told Sky News in October that he was not currently worried about the technology.
“It’s a novelty, it’s a gimmick. It’s the solution we don’t need. Who needs a driverless taxi?” said.
He added that he did not believe Londoners would trust the vehicles or “put their children in one to go to school”.
Waymo said in response that it “provides hundreds of thousands of rides each week in the US and in May of this year shared that we have provided more than 10,000,000 fully autonomous rides to the public.”
However, concerns around safety remain, as a 2024 study found that while self-driving cars are generally safer than human-driven vehicles, they were more likely to be involved in accidents at dawn, dusk or turning, and were more than five times more likely to crash in low-light conditions.
(Heaven News)