I never really thought that self-driving cars would come to the UK, so you can imagine my surprise when I found myself climbing into one of Wave’s autonomous vehicles for a trip to North London a few weeks ago.
In June, the company announced plans with Uber to begin testing Level 4 fully autonomous robotaxis in the capital by 2026, part of the government’s plan to fast-track self-driving pilots ahead of a possible wider rollout in late 2027. Alphabet-owned Waymo, now a staple of US cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, also has its sights set on London, announcing plans for its own fully driverless robotaxi service in 2026. This is its first attempt to expand outside the US.
My skepticism about whether self-driving cars will operate in London is not unfounded. On many levels, London is a robotaxi’s worst nightmare. At every possible turn, the city is conflicted about autonomy. Its road network is narrow, winding and hellish to navigate, a quagmire of concrete that has emerged over centuries, designed for use not by cars but by horses and carts. Narrow roads make it even more difficult to avoid obstacles – potholes, parked cars, you know – and that’s before we’ve even begun to consider the flood of other vehicles, pedestrians, tourists, cyclists, buses, taxi cabs and animals (like rogue military horses) sharing the road. And the less said about roundabouts or the weather, the better.
Even if a robotaxi manages to successfully travel across London, it will also need Londoners to keep up with the technology. This may be difficult. We are a skeptical bunch and when it comes to putting AI in cars; Surveys rank Britons among the worst people in the world. There has been much hype – and even failure – surrounding the technology in the past, leaving a legacy of mistrust and distrust that entrants must overcome. And there are the prestigious black taxis to compete with them, and they are known to drive hard bargains. When Uber first arrived on the scene, cabbies repeatedly brought London to a standstill, and the group is still at war with the ridesharing company today. They don’t see much of a threat this time, he said, dismissing driverless cars as “a fair ride” and “a tourist attraction in San Francisco.”
Wave’s headquarters didn’t feel like a San Francisco tourist attraction. The combination of unadorned brick and black metal fencing gives Wave, which started life in a Cambridge garage in 2017 and is still led by co-founder Alex Kendall, a random warehouse atmosphere. Just 15 minutes away is King’s Cross, a reclaimed industrial wasteland that is now home to companies like Google and Meta, in what many would consider a more traditional setting for a company that has raised more than $1 billion from giants like Nvidia, Microsoft, and SoftBank (and is reportedly in talks to raise $2 billion more).
Its cars – a fleet of Ford Mustang Mach-S – didn’t look that futuristic. The only real gift they planned to replace human drivers was a small box of sensors mounted above the windshield, a far cry from the intrusive hump at the top of the Vemos.
Inside, it was just as normal. As we left the Wave’s premises, the only thing that really stood out was the big red emergency stop button in the center console, a reminder that, legally speaking, a human driver has to be ready to take over control at any time. If it weren’t for the loud noise indicating that the robotaxi had taken over, I don’t think I would have noticed that the driver had relinquished control at all.
It handled the city well – much better than I expected. Within a few minutes, we left the quiet streets near Waves Base and joined a busy road. The car moved easily between parked cars and delivery vehicles, slowed down politely when food couriers came past us on electric bikes, and, mercifully, didn’t run over any jaywalkers who treated London crossings more like suggestions than rules.
However, the journey was not at all easy, and I felt nothing like the ethereal peace I felt when I took my first Waymo in San Francisco this summer. Wave was more hesitant than ever, a bit like when my sister had taken me out for the first time after getting her license a few years ago.
That hesitation is especially strange in London. The friends, taxi drivers, bus drivers and Uber drivers I’ve traveled with exude a kind of impatient confidence, a sense of urgency that Wave is entirely lacking. I haven’t driven since I passed my test 15 years ago – it’s much easier to drive in London without the Tube – but its stops still test my patience. Our route took us past the high walls of Pentonville Prison in Islington, and we followed a cyclist I was sure I could safely overtake as well and any Londoner would surely overtake.
I later learned that this intermittentness is a feature, not a bug. Unlike Waymo – which uses a combination of detailed maps, rules, sensors and AI to drive – Wave employs an end-to-end AI model that lets it drive in a normal way. In other words, the Wave drives more like a human and less like a machine. It certainly felt that way; I kept looking at the safety driver’s hands, half expecting them to take control back already. He never had. Other drivers also looked confident. A policeman even raised his hand in thanks as we left him space to change at a petrol station, although perhaps that protection was for the driver.
In theory, this embedded AI approach means you can drop the Wave Car anywhere and it will adapt easily, just like a human driver might do when traveling in an unfamiliar city. I’m not sure I’m ready to test it myself, but the team said they recently drove in the Scottish Highlands and came back with no damage.
I later learned that the company, which is targeting markets in Japan, Europe and North America, is traveling around the world on an AI “road show” this year to test its technology in 500 unfamiliar cities. Knowing this, it seems there would be little need for Wave to take The Knowledge, a series of tests for London’s black cab drivers to show that they have memorized thousands of streets and locations, allowing them to navigate without a GPS (it also makes scientists love their brains).
The approach means the technology is designed to respond to the world more fluidly and in a more humane way to the unpredictable scenarios and edge cases that terrify autonomous car makers. On my trip, it did just that. Road workers, learner drivers, groups of cyclists, and London buses, even a man walking on crutches on the road – it handled each competently, albeit more carefully than the London driver. The most disturbing moment came when a blind man passed by waving his stick between two parked cars – the scene was so on the nose that I had to ask the company if it was staged (it was not) – but before I could react, the car had already slowed down and changed direction.
By the time we got back to Wave’s campus, I realized that I had stopped thinking about who was driving. It was only the repetition of the rapid buzzer that indicated our safety driver was back in control. It seems my brain has finally accepted autonomy, at least the London version. It’s rougher around the edges, less science-fiction, more human. And maybe this is the point.