- Londoners will be able to hail an autonomous cab in 2026
- Company will use specially-designed Jaguar I-Pace vehicles
- Trials and testing will begin in several London boroughs
London will be the first destination in Europe to offer Waymo’s driverless taxi cab service next year, as the company looks to expand its operations beyond the US and into new territories.
Alongside Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Atlanta, the company is already expanding to San Jose in California, Miami and Washington DC, with early testing already taking place in Tokyo and now London.
The company says it plans to offer rides in the UK’s capital city without a human behind the wheel in 2026. So how exactly will Waymo work when it lands in London?
How Waymo will work in London
Firstly, Waymo should be more than just a niche, central London offering. Right now, it is working with the appropriate authorities to get permissions to begin testing, which will take place in more than 20 boroughs of London, suggesting that the service will extend well beyond just inner city locations.
Waymo says that is has “strong ties with the United Kingdom” thanks to it being home to two of its international engineering hubs. The second thing to expect is a pretty comfortable ride – the company has partnered with UK-based Jaguar Land Rover to fit the all-electric I-Pace with the camera and sensor suite required for fully autonomous driving.
What about the fare? If the service is anything like that offered in the US, most typical London rides will be more expensive than those serviced with a real human driver. According to TechCrunch, Waymo’s average price for a ride was around $20 in San Francisco (about £15), while Uber and Lyft hovered around $15 (around £11) for the same journey.
This seemingly hasn’t put customers off, as Waymo says it is now providing over 250,000 paid trips per week across its four US city locations.
Fourthly, the autonomous taxi company also recently announced a partnership with both Spotify and YouTube Music, which allows customers to jump in and sync their favorite streaming services using a simple QR code.
Playlists can then be streamed within the car, giving full control to the customer over to adjust the graphic equalizer and the volume to suit the mood onboard. The same technology and offering will likely be offered to UK customers.
Lastly, it is expected that European customers will also use the same Waymo One smartphone app, which allows customers to select a pick-up location and destination, as well as pay for rides.
In some locations, users can also take advantage of Waymo’s service using the Uber app, although this hasn’t been confirmed for the London operations.
Not everyone is happy about Waymo’s rapid expansion, as Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, told The Guardian the he thinks its a “tourist attraction” and that he feels there “no demand for it”.
The robots are coming
Alongside Waymo, British rival Wayve has partnered with Uber to move its Level 4 autonomous trials into a live ride-hailing service in London, which it hopes will be available via the current Uber platform and app.
This has been made possible by the UK Government’s push to accelerate the testing and trialling of autonomous vehicles. Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander, says Waymo’s move will “increase accessible transport options alongside bringing jobs, investment, and opportunities to the UK”.
Waymo claims that its technology has the potential to significantly improve road safety, with data showing that cars driven by humans were involved in incidents that injured pedestrians 12 times more often than its autonomous vehicles, which have covered more than 100 million autonomous miles to date.
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