Uber robotaxis hit London's streets, but with humans still behind the wheel

Uber has put 15 autonomous Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles on London’s roads, taking its robotaxi experiment into one of the world’s most complex urban driving environments. The vehicles use artificial intelligence developed with British technology company Wayve, but a human supervisor still has to sit inside every car.

London’s regulators do not yet allow full autonomy on the roads. The robotaxis can travel anywhere within the city, although they cannot currently make airport trips. Wayve and Uber have had to develop the system for a city filled with old roads, roundabouts, cyclists, pedestrians and frequent roadwork.

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There’s many roundabouts, interaction scenarios, there’s more than 10 times more cyclists and pedestrians than you can see in cities like San Francisco. More than 10 times the amount of roadwork, so it’s just a constantly busy and evolving city.

“There’s many roundabouts, interaction scenarios, there’s more than 10 times more cyclists and pedestrians than you can see in cities like San Francisco,” said Wayve chief executive Alex Kendall. “More than 10 times the amount of roadwork, so it’s just a constantly busy and evolving city.”

Wayve says its system differs from rival Waymo’s approach because it does not map a city before driving there. Instead, Kendall said, it trains on millions of hours of driving experience around the world and makes decisions in real time in places it has never seen. The company has driven its vehicles in more than 500 cities across Europe, Asia and North America.

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We train it on millions of hours of experience driving all around the world. So this means when it goes somewhere it’s never seen before or that’s never been mapped, it can understand what’s in front of it and make decisions in real time.

For a fare 20% above a standard Uber trip, a CBS News crew tested one of the robotaxis. It drove autonomously at first, but eventually became stuck while attempting to pass through a narrow space. The onboard supervisor then took over and drove the vehicle.

The rollout also raises questions for London’s black-cab drivers. Their numbers have fallen from about 25,000 in 2010 to approximately 16,000 today, according to Transport for London statistics. Uber’s global head of autonomous mobility and delivery, Sarfraz Maredia, said robotaxis did not pose a near-term threat because the market was growing and autonomous vehicles could help meet additional demand.

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No, we don’t really see that as a near-term risk. So, the reality is the market is growing. And we think AVs are going to help take up some of the growth in the market.