London licenses its first self-driving cabs — Wayve clears the last of the three permits Uber needed

On 5 August 2026 Transport for London granted private hire vehicle licences to Wayve's autonomous cars, the last piece of what London's rules demand for a paid private-hire trip: the operator, the driver and the vehicle must each be licensed by the same authority. Uber already holds the operator licence, so the grant clears the way for autonomous rides to be booked on the Uber app in the capital. The licensed cars are all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles fitted with Wayve's AI Driver, surround cameras and radar — no lidar and no HD maps, the point of difference from the American and Chinese robotaxi fleets. Reports put the approved trial at up to 15 vehicles. What this is not is a driverless service. Every trip carries a trained, TfL-licensed private hire driver who supervises and can take control, and the trial runs under the UK government's AV Trialling Code of Practice. Sarah Gates, Wayve's VP of Global Affairs and Assurance, called the licence "an important step towards giving Londoners the chance to experience autonomous driving technology"; Uber's Annie Duvnjak, Global Head of Autonomous Mobility Operations, described it as "a key milestone in bringing autonomous rides to London on Uber". Selected riders from Uber's interest list are due to take the first journeys later this summer. Taking the safety driver out is a separate regulatory event, not an incremental one: it requires an Automated Passenger Service permit from the DVSA under the Automated Vehicles Act 2024. Until then, the comparison with Waymo in Phoenix, Apollo Go in Wuhan or WeRide in Abu Dhabi — all carrying passengers with an empty driver's seat — remains a comparison between a trial and a business.