{"id":663921,"date":"2026-11-01T20:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T20:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/663921\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T20:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T20:10:17","slug":"sadiq-khan-calls-for-cap-on-numbers-of-robotaxis-on-london-streets-self-driving-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/663921\/","title":{"rendered":"Sadiq Khan calls for cap on numbers of robotaxis on London streets | Self-driving cars"},"content":{"rendered":"

London\u2019s mayor has called for a cap on the numbers of robotaxis on its streets, with the UK government poised to allow fully driverless vehicles to operate in the capital.<\/p>\n

Sadiq Khan said politicians had failed to \u201cgrasp the pace of change\u201d from the technology, which could threaten jobs and increase congestion in the city, and questioned whether the rules for autonomous cars were fit for purpose.<\/p>\n

His comments came after Chinese robotaxis, now being tested in London, were unveiled by Freenow by Lyft<\/a>, a rival to Uber.<\/p>\n

In September Uber started offering limited passenger services in Wayve\u2019s self-driving cars<\/a>, albeit with a safety driver in the front seat, under licence from Transport for London (TfL).<\/p>\n

Freenow by Lyft is hoping to launch fully driverless Baidu robotaxis as early as next year, under a national licensing scheme.<\/p>\n

However, the companies, as well as Waymo \u2013 which operates robotaxis in San Francisco and other US cities \u2013 are primarily focusing on London<\/a> and Khan said the city needed to be able to limit the rollout.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we don\u2019t want is a situation where there\u2019s a big bang without proper regulation in place. We\u2019ve got to make sure the regulation is fit for purpose before we have a mass rollout of things like automated vehicles,\u201d said Khan.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI think the pace of change when it comes to tech and innovation has not been fully grasped by politicians. There\u2019s got to be incremental movement when it comes to things like robotaxis or automated vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re lobbying the government for TfL<\/a>, for London, to have more powers than it currently has on things like automated vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are big questions that haven\u2019t been answered yet: what impact will this have on air quality, on congestion, on those people whose livelihood is being a private hire vehicle driver or a black-taxi driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drivers\u2019 unions have held protests at the London HQs of Wayve and Waymo in recent weeks, with many Uber drivers fearing for their future<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Khan added: \u201cIs there going to be a cap? At the moment there\u2019s no cap on the number of private hire vehicles or taxis. We\u2019ve lobbied for those powers as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cLondon isn\u2019t San Francisco. We\u2019re a city of almost 10 million, 400 villages, narrow roads, and it\u2019s really important to get this right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under current regulations for fully autonomous vehicles, TfL can only give or refuse consent for their use within London and not manage or license robotaxi services, making the capital\u2019s authorities somewhat less enthusiastic than ministers to accelerate towards the new technology.<\/p>\n

However, Freenow by Lyft said the UK\u2019s national framework for driverless cars was an important factor.<\/p>\n

Danny O\u2019Gorman, UK and Ireland general manager, said it was \u201cgreat news for us to really invest in the market. But in terms of how it\u2019s going to be regulated, once the service is up and running, that\u2019s something that still needs to be ironed out.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Gorman said the company was working closely with TfL and \u201cwanted to do things the right way\u201d. About 24 autonomous Baidu Apollo Go vehicles are being tested in the London borough of Brent.<\/p>\n

The spacious Chinese cars, which incorporate a massage seat and a built-in touchscreen in the back for passengers, are in fully autonomous service in cities in China and the UAE, and appeared to be handling the streets safely in a test drive in October for the Guardian.<\/p>\n

But many test trips still require human intervention, with roadworks proving difficult. For autonomous vehicles (AVs), \u201can interesting challenge in London is following the rules of the road\u201d, when many drivers ignore them, O\u2019Gorman said: \u201cYou get beeped at a lot for following the speed limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freenow by Lyft is promising a purpose-built AV depot in the UK. O\u2019Gorman said a large proportion of displaced taxi drivers could be employed there in remote operating and servicing jobs.<\/p>\n

The company has traditionally worked with black cabs and, he said: \u201cThe larger risks to that industry are the driver age profile: two-thirds are over 50 and they\u2019re retiring, and the vehicle\u2019s too expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cAV is not going to be really competing in that space and it\u2019s going to take a long time for us to scale up to vehicle numbers that threaten anything to do with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London\u2019s mayor has called for a cap on the numbers of robotaxis on its streets, with the UK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-663921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}