Uber and Wayve on September 3, 2026 launched supervised autonomous rides on the Uber platform in London, the first time autonomous trips have been available to riders in the United Kingdom, the companies announced. Londoners requesting an UberX, Uber Electric, or Uber Comfort may now be matched with a Wayve vehicle at no extra cost, with upfront fares shown in the app.
How the Rides Work
Riders matched with a Wayve ride travel in an all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E equipped with the Wayve AI Driver and surround sensors. The in-vehicle experience, designed by Uber, includes an interactive screen available in 64 languages, where riders can start their trip and view the vehicle’s planned path. On every trip, riders have the option to accept the Wayve ride or switch to a non-autonomous ride before the car arrives. Once the vehicle arrives, riders can unlock the doors and start the trip directly from the Uber app.
At launch, riders can travel anywhere within London apart from airports. The companies said they are starting with a small number of vehicles in this initial phase and will expand over time in line with rider demand, readiness, and regulation. Uber customers in London can increase their chances of being matched by opting in through the Trip Preferences section of the app under Settings, and more than 140,000 Londoners have already done so, according to the announcement.
Licensing and Safety Requirements
The initial launch phase consists of supervised autonomous rides, meaning a trained private hire driver licensed by Transport for London is onboard to oversee each trip. Any autonomous vehicle on the Uber network must also meet the company’s safety guidelines.
The launch follows a regulatory step on August 5, 2026, when Transport for London granted Private Hire Vehicle licences to a number of Wayve’s autonomous Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles. The cars, equipped with the Wayve AI Driver and surround cameras and radar, were inspected to confirm they meet Transport for London’s policy and safety standards. The vehicle licensing completed a requirement the companies describe as a triple-lock for private hire trips, under which the operator, the driver, and the vehicle must all hold licences with the same licensing authority. Trips take place under the UK government’s AV Trialling Code of Practice and Uber’s Transport for London private hire operator licence.
Wayve’s vehicles are designed to operate autonomously and do the driving, with the onboard driver able to provide support or take over driving if needed. In the eight weeks before the August licensing announcement, more than 100,000 Londoners had signed up to Uber’s Interest List for a chance to be matched with a Wayve autonomous ride, the companies said at the time.
Partnership and Technology
The London service is part of a strategic partnership announced on August 29, 2024, under which Uber agreed to make a strategic investment in Wayve as an extension of Wayve’s previously announced Series C fundraising round. Wayve said at the time that it intended to use the additional funding to accelerate work with global automakers on Level 2+ advanced driver assistance and Level 3 automated driving capabilities, while also working toward globally scalable Level 4 autonomous vehicles for future deployment on Uber. The launch announcement said the partnership included an investment to put Wayve-powered vehicles on the Uber network in 12 markets around the world, beginning with London.
Wayve was founded and is headquartered in London, and the company said it has built and trained its AI technology on the capital’s roads since 2018. Its approach, which it calls AV2.0, uses an AI Driver that learns from experience much like a human driver, which Wayve said allows it to scale and adapt to complex environments without relying on traditional high-definition maps or hand-coded rules. The company said the technology is agnostic to vehicle platforms and sensor configurations, and that it has demonstrated its adaptability across more than 500 cities worldwide.
“We’re proud to introduce the Wayve AI Driver to the public for the first time right here in London, our home city and one of the most complex driving environments in the world,” said Alex Kendall, CEO and co-founder of Wayve. He said autonomous driving technology will complement the city’s transport network and framed the launch as the start of a global rollout with Uber.
Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s global head of autonomous mobility, said the launch brings autonomous rides to Uber riders in London for the first time and described Wayve as a homegrown British success story.
UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander also welcomed the launch. “This is a major milestone for the future of transport in London, as British innovation brings this technology onto our roads and gives passengers more choice,” she said, adding that the government wants to support new opportunities for investment and skills as the technology develops while recognising the role of people working in the sector today. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the vehicles use homegrown British AI from Wayve.
Expansion to Tokyo
Wayve and Uber also plan to introduce riders to the Nissan LEAF, powered by the Wayve AI Driver using NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion, starting in Tokyo in late 2026. Under a memorandum of understanding announced on March 11, 2026, Wayve, Uber, and Nissan agreed to collaborate on robotaxi development and begin preparations for a pilot deployment in Tokyo, Uber’s first autonomous vehicle partnership in Japan. During the initial phase there, vehicles will operate on the Uber network with a trained safety operator in the car. Uber said it intends to launch the Tokyo service through a licensed taxi partner in Japan, working in alignment with relevant authorities, and was in the process of selecting its partners when the agreement was announced.
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