Uber and Wayve launched supervised autonomous passenger rides in London on 3 September 2026. Uber described the start as the first availability of autonomous ride-hailing trips in the United Kingdom.
The launch uses a small fleet of battery-electric Ford Mustang Mach-Es equipped with Wayve’s artificial-intelligence driving system and surrounding sensors. Each vehicle carries a trained private-hire driver licensed by Transport for London (TfL), who remains onboard to supervise the trip. The service is therefore an operational passenger offering with human supervision, rather than an unattended autonomous taxi service.
Passengers requesting UberX, Uber Electric or Uber Comfort can be matched with a Wayve vehicle at no additional charge. A rider can accept the autonomous-vehicle journey or switch to a conventional ride before the vehicle arrives.
The initial service can operate within London but excludes airport journeys. Uber said the rollout would begin with a small fleet and expand subject to demand, operational readiness and regulation. The company also said that more than 140,000 London users had opted in through their app preferences when the service launched.
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Wayve was founded in London and says it has trained its technology on the capital’s roads since 2018. The company’s vehicles are being introduced through existing Uber product categories, so customers who are matched with one receive the choice of an autonomous vehicle or a conventional journey before pickup.
The supervised model comes as public authorities continue to consider how autonomous passenger vehicles could operate alongside established taxi and private-hire services. London Assembly material identifies questions about employment in those sectors, interaction between autonomous vehicles and other road users, and the relationship with the Mayor’s transport objectives.
An Assembly investigation also notes that the Government had proposed accelerating smaller-scale taxi- and bus-like services before a broader potential rollout. That wider context does not change the terms of the London launch: every launch-phase vehicle has a TfL-licensed driver onboard.
The size and reach of the service will depend on the conditions identified by Uber, including customer demand, readiness and regulation. At launch, the service is limited to London journeys other than trips to airports, with riders retaining the option to select a conventional Uber journey before the vehicle arrives.
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