Waymo is preparing to expand its robotaxi service to Europe, starting with London

Moove and Waymo, two giants in the mobility sector, have announced their partnership with the aim of bringing a driverless passenger transport service to Europe. Starting next year, Londoners and tourists visiting the British capital will be able to enjoy this new service through the Waymo app, just as is already the case in several US cities.

In the United States, more than 1,500 Waymo autonomous vehicles already operate on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Phoenix and Atlanta. Although the operating area varies across these cities, the experience the company has built up over recent years has allowed Waymo to now embark on this new adventure on the other side of the Atlantic.

In London, Waymo will take its first steps with a pilot programme in collaboration with Moove, which already runs a vehicle financing and fleet business in the British capital. Users will be able to request driverless vehicles directly from Waymo’s mobile app, and these will be equipped with Waymo Driver technology integrated into the company’s fleet of electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles.

A new level of difficulty

Bringing this technology to London will not, however, be without challenges. The city, known for its complex network of streets that combine narrow medieval lanes with busy intersections where cyclists, buses, traditional taxis, lorries and pedestrians share the road, presents a far more complex scenario than the urban grids of the United States, where Waymo has mainly trained its vehicles.

Nevertheless, Waymo faces this challenge with confidence, knowing it has the backing of its engineering centres located in London itself and also in Oxford, where teams are already developing advanced autonomous driving simulations. The safety offered by Waymo’s vehicles will, moreover, be a key differentiator of the company’s autonomous passenger transport service. With more than 100 million miles driven by its autonomous vehicles, the data gathered so far shows that these vehicles have recorded fewer incidents than similar services with human-driven vehicles.

It is therefore no surprise that Waymo’s upcoming arrival in the British capital has begun to cause concern among those who make their living behind the wheel of one of the iconic black cabs that fill London’s streets. In any case, some representatives of the London taxi trade recall that they have already had to face other similar challenges, such as those posed by Uber drivers, and have described Waymo’s new autonomous vehicle service as little more than a tourist attraction that cannot be considered a practical solution. Time will tell whether they are right.

Technical specifications of this car

CrossoverJaguar I-Pace2 versions · from 95,000 €