London rollout of robotaxis delayed amid lack of guidance for firms to follow

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A Wayve autonomous car. Wayve and Uber have said more than 100,000 Londoners are on their waiting list for self-driving taxis. Photograph: tim@timandrew.co.uk/Wayve View image in fullscreen A Wayve autonomous car. Wayve and Uber have said more than 100,000 Londoners are on their waiting list for self-driving taxis. Photograph: tim@timandrew.co.uk/Wayve Self-driving cars London rollout of robotaxis delayed amid lack of guidance for firms to follow Uber and Wayve had said they would start trips ‘later this summer’ but launch now looks unlikely this year

Prefer the Guardian on Google The rollout of robotaxis on the streets of London is unlikely to happen this year, as regulatory and technical hurdles push back the ambitious schedule set out by the UK government.

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 – but with a human safety driver in place, for now – and said they would start trips “later this summer” before a full public launch .

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.

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.