Syed Saif Ul Hassan 
Oct 15, 2025
The renowned US-based autonomous robotaxi service, Waymo, has announced to expand its operations to the UK, making driverless ride-hailing service available commercially available in London by 2026.
Waymo's London footfall marks the company's second international expansion after Tokyo, coming weeks after speculations sparked by job postings in London.
Waymo will start testing its all-electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles on London’s public roads in the coming weeks, TechCrunch reported, all equipped with self-driving technology.
In the initial phase ahead of the full-scale rollout, human safety drivers will be behind the wheel, but the company is planning to move to driverless testing.
The goal is to eventually allow the public to book Waymo robotaxis in London, following a strategy used in other markets like Phoenix and San Francisco.
The UK footprint of Waymo is also seen as an outcome of its recently established connections in the UK, as it acquired Latent Logic in 2019, a startup from Oxford University that enhances self-driving car simulations using imitation learning. Part of this acquisition led to Waymo opening an engineering hub in Oxford.
Although there's no official disclosure as to when Waymo will remove the human drivers or how big the fleet will be, spokesperson Ethan Teicher confirmed that a self-driving car service for the public is expected to launch in 2026, pending UK government approval.
Waymo will manage London operations in partnership with Moove, which is already overseeing its autonomous vehicles in Phoenix. In other cities like Austin and Atlanta, Waymo has joined hands with Uber for fleet management responsibilities, including charging and maintenance.
Over the past two years, Waymo has expanded its testing and commercial operations beyond Phoenix to several US cities and plans to offer its robotaxi service in Miami, Nashville, and Washington, DC.
