{"id":750251,"date":"2026-08-26T11:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T11:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/750251\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T11:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T11:22:13","slug":"london-rollout-of-robotaxis-delayed-amid-lack-of-guidance-for-firms-to-follow-self-driving-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/750251\/","title":{"rendered":"London rollout of robotaxis delayed amid lack of guidance for firms to follow | Self-driving cars"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rollout of robotaxis on the streets of London<\/a> is unlikely to happen this year, as regulatory and technical hurdles push back the ambitious schedule set out by the UK government.<\/p>\n

Only weeks ago Uber and London-based Wayve were granted the first minicab licences in the capital to allow them to offer self-driving taxi rides to paying customers \u2013 but with a human safety driver in place, for now \u2013 and said they would start trips \u201clater this summer\u201d before a full public launch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, accelerated the proposed timeline for commercial trials of fully driverless taxi services by a year, announcing that they would start in the spring of this year.<\/p>\n

However, progress has slowed in recent months and Transport for London (TfL) has still not published the guidance that companies wanting to offer services must follow to win its approval.<\/p>\n

Last month, Christina Calderato, TfL\u2019s director of strategy, told the London assembly\u2019s transport committee that the transit authority would not be in a position to start accepting applications \u201cfor some time\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI do not think we are in a rush to get [the guidelines] out. There is a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uber and Wayve have said that more than 100,000 Londoners were on their waiting list for self-driving taxis.<\/p>\n

They are racing against Google-owned Waymo and its Chinese equivalent, Baidu\u2019s Apollo Go, to launch self-driving taxi services in London. Robotaxis are now available to hire in more than 20 cities across the US, China and the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month Zagreb became the first European city to offer autonomous rides to the general public, through Uber, but the service still has a human driver for \u201conboard monitoring\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Waymo announced that it plans to launch commercial operations in Munich, Germany, late next year.<\/p>\n

Ben Loewenstein, Waymo\u2019s head of policy and government affairs for the UK and Europe, told the Financial Times that the company was currently \u201cworking through the safety approval process\u201d with the transport department and was waiting on TfL\u2019s guidance to gain consent.<\/p>\n

He added that Waymo was working towards launching a fully autonomous service \u201cby the end of this year\u201d but would not say whether the company would be able to offer paid rides to the general public in that timeframe.<\/p>\n

TfL has granted 15 private hire vehicle licences to Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles equipped with Wayve\u2019s artificial intelligence driving software, as well as surround cameras and radar.<\/p>\n

A TfL-licensed private hire driver will sit in the driver\u2019s seat during trips to intervene if necessary, although the software is expected to control the car.<\/p>\n

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Uber and Wayve plan to launch small-scale commercial pilots with a driver behind the wheel soon.<\/p>\n

For its fully driverless launch Wayve plans to switch to a new Nissan Leaf vehicle that is still in production and is due to launch later this year.<\/p>\n

Alex Kendall, Wayve\u2019s chief executive, said the company never claimed it would have a fully driverless operation this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to put a timeline on it because we want to make sure we pass through [the regulatory process],\u201d he told the FT. \u201cThis work is continuing at pace. London is a significant step up in complexity compared to Phoenix or San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baidu only began testing vehicles in London at the end of last month and has said it plans to launch public rides next year.<\/p>\n

Operating taxis without a driver requires approval via a new process, known as an automated passenger services permit, with the government\u2019s Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. So far, no vehicles have been approved by the DVSA.<\/p>\n

TfL was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rollout of robotaxis on the streets of London is unlikely to happen this year, as regulatory and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-750251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}