Uber partners with AI firm Wayve for autonomy trials in UK

Uber Technologies Inc has tapped AI firm Wayve to launch public road trials for autonomous vehicles in the UK, according to a joint press statement on Tuesday.

Uber and Wayve will develop Level 4 autonomous vehicles under their collaboration. Industry body Society of Automotive Engineers classifies vehicle autonomy in six levels, ranging from Level 0 to Level 5. Level 4 driverless vehicles have high autonomy, but are restricted to an area. A human driver can assume manual control in case of an emergency or system failure.

Alphabet is already operating its Waymo autonomous taxis in San Francisco, while several other manufacturers are working on their iterations, like Tesla's robotaxi.


The Uber-Wayve deal makes the UK largest market where the cab hailing platform intends to pilot autonomous vehicles. These trials will combine Wayve's Embodied AI platform with Uber’s global mobility network.

London and other UK cities represent complex driving environments, with significantly different road layouts and traffic laws compared to locations in the US, where a majority of global L4 testing has until now been conducted, the statement read. The lessons learnt from the UK will therefore be a major step forward in the development of L4 technology for deployment in cities around the world.

Wayve and Uber entered a multi-year collaboration in 2024 to integrate the former's Embodied AI into vehicles on the latter's platform. Operational trials will be the scaled towards deployment in key European markets.

Founded in 2017, Wayve is a London-based automated driving developer backed by SoftBank Group, Nvidia, and Eclipse Ventures