TL;DR

Driverless taxis are now unlikely to carry paying passengers in London this year. Transport for London has not issued the guidance operators need to follow, is in no hurry to do so, and the agency that must approve driverless vehicles has approved none.

Two regulators, neither ready

Uber and the London company Wayve received the capital’s first minicab licences for self-driving rides only weeks ago, with a safety driver aboard, and talked about starting trips later in the summer. TfL holds 15 private hire licences for Ford Mustang Mach-E cars fitted with Wayve’s software, cameras and radar, each carrying a licensed driver ready to take over.

Getting to no driver at all requires something else: an automated passenger services permit from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. No vehicle has one.

Meanwhile TfL cannot yet accept applications. Its strategy director, Christina Calderato, told the transport committee at the London assembly last month that this would not change soon, adding that there was no rush and a great deal of work under way behind the scenes.

Against the announced timetable

The gap between plan and position is the story. In 2025 the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, pulled the schedule for commercial driverless trials forward by a year, putting them in spring 2026. That spring has been and gone.

Wayve’s chief executive, Alex Kendall, says the company never promised a fully driverless service before the year was out, and declines to name a date, noting the capital is a considerable step up in difficulty from Phoenix or San Francisco. Waymo is working through safety approval and waiting on the same TfL guidance. Baidu started testing here only last month and targets next year.

Looking forward

Robotaxis already run across 20-plus cities in America, the Middle East and China. Zagreb this month opened autonomous rides to its general public, a European first — with someone aboard to monitor. Waymo will launch in Munich late next year.

The UK’s problem is not technology or investment. It is that ministers set a date the regulators were never resourced to meet, which is a familiar shape in British AI policy.