Wayve, Uber Launch Supervised Autonomous Rides in London
aiinsider ·
Wayve and Uber have launched supervised autonomous ride-hailing in London, which Wayve claims is the first such service in the U.K. Riders using UberX, Uber Electric, or Uber Comfort may be matched with a Wayve-equipped Ford Mustang Mach-E at no extra cost, with a Transport for London-licensed driver onboard during the initial phase. The service begins with a small number of vehicles and operates across London excluding airports, and passengers can decline the autonomous vehicle or use the Uber app to unlock it. An interactive in-car screen, available in 64 languages, lets riders start the trip and see the planned route. More than 140,000 London users have opted in to increase their chances of matching with a Wayve vehicle. Wayve's AI Driver has been trained on London roads since 2018 and uses an approach that learns from experience rather than HD maps or hand-coded rules. This launch is part of a broader partnership to deploy Wayve-powered vehicles on Uber in 12 markets, with Nissan Leaf vehicles using the Wayve AI Driver and Nvidia Drive Hyperion planned for Tokyo later this year.
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