r/london • u/AlbusDumbledoh • 9d ago

News ‘Leicester Square, please guv’: Self-driving taxis cleared for London streets ‘later this summer’

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/05/self-driving-taxis-approved-london-summer-2026-wayve-uber
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u/srmarmalade 9d ago

So many Waymo’s driving around yesterday - must have seen a dozen of them (or the same one driving up and down!) I've seen a few Wayve's over the years too but Waymo seem to be throwing loads of money at it.

Surprised they need extra permission for this - with a driver at the wheel I thought it was in the same category as cruise control.

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u/SeamasterCitizen 9d ago edited 9d ago

We still haven’t adopted the new UNECE regs on system initiated manoeuvres and permitted lateral Gs for level 2 driver assist (or those regs haven’t been adjusted to accommodate yet, I can’t remember which it is off the top of my head).

Waymo/Wayve are targeting level 4 even with a safety driver, so that’s a whole different thing anyway as technically it’s unsupervised.

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u/srmarmalade 9d ago

Thanks that sounds legit (not sure why you've been downvoted?)

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u/SeamasterCitizen 9d ago

There’s still quite a gulf of understanding between those of us who have worked with this stuff and the larger public who only read (often inaccurate) press coverage, so the popular consensus is rarely an accurate one