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Londoners will soon be able to hail a driverless taxi to get around the capital, after a controversial Californian autonomous taxi company confirmed its European launch for the UK capital.
Waymo's fully-autonomous ride-hailing services should be on offer to tourists, commuters and the general public in 2026 - and there will be no human behind the wheel.
The autonomous taxis, hailed via an app, will be all-electric Jaguar I-Paces, as Waymo has partnered with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and outfitted the EVs with the Waymo Driver - the name of Waymo's autonomous driving tech.
Its arrival in Britain comes after half a decade of shuttling customers around America without a driver at the wheel, with the ride-hailing app currently serving five cities in the US and over 10 million people since it launched.
It comes after the Government announced in June that it will introduce self-driving commercial pilots on England's roads from spring 2026, with firms able to debut small scale 'taxi -and bus-like' services without a safety driver for the first time.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander welcomed Waymo's announcement, saying she's 'delighted that Waymo intends to bring their services to London next year, under our proposed piloting scheme'.
Waymo - owned by Google's parent Company Alphabet - says it has 'strong ties to the United Kingdom'.
London and Oxford are home to its first international engineering hubs, which include 'teams advancing large-scale, closed-loop simulation – a gold standard development method for fully autonomous driving technology'.
This aligns with its partnership with JLR; the Waymo-fitted self-driving I-Paces are already serving thousands of fully autonomous rides every week in the US.
The ride-hailing service is supposed to 'support London's extensive network of bus, tube, bike and pedestrian infrastructure' and 'help achieve London's transport priorities'.
Specifically. Waymo says that its autonomous taxis will help reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on the capital's roads.
It points to its data that it says shows its technology is involved in five times fewer injury-causing collisions and 12 times fewer injury-causing collisions with pedestrians compared to humans.
Although it won't convince everyone, and many see autonomous driving as highly controversial and dangerous, Waymo's data indicates over 96 million rider-only miles Waymo Driver has been involved in 11 times fewer serious injuries or worse crashes than human drivers.
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said: 'We’re thrilled to bring the reliability, safety and magic of Waymo to Londoners.
'Waymo is making roads safer and transportation more accessible where we operate. We’ve demonstrated how to responsibly scale fully autonomous ride-hailing, and we can’t wait to expand the benefits of our technology to the United Kingdom.'
London might be later to the self-driving party than cities across the Pond, but every week in The States the taxi service covers hundreds of thousands of trips on a weekly basis, with Waymo currently available in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta.
Joining London in the next stage of Waymo's expansion will be Miami, Washington, Dallas, Denver, Seattle and Nashville. Pilots are also happening in Tokyo.
In June, the Department for Transport announced the first step in a wider rollout of self-driving cars which will see the Automated Vehicles (AV) Act become law from the second half of 2027.
The Government estimates it will directly help create around 38,000 jobs, make roads safer and keep the UK among the 'world leaders in new technology'.
Waymo earlier this year hit headlines when it found itself at the centre of demonstrations in Los Angeles against the Trump Administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
Protestors smashed the vehicles' windows, slashed the tyres, spray-painted them with anti-ICE slogans, and set them alight.
It forced the LA Police Department to take to social platform X - formerly Twitter - to warn people of the dangers of setting the electric vehicles on fire, posting: 'Burning lithium-ion batteries release toxic gases, including hydrogen fluoride, posing risks to responders and those nearby.'
At least six Waymo vehicles were reportedly targeted, which resulted in the company temporarily suspending operations in the area 'out of an abundance of caution'.
Are self-driving taxis more expensive?
Reports on self-driving taxis in the US indicate riding in one is more expensive than human-driven ride hailing services.
Recently the Economist said that 'perhaps Waymos are 20-40 per cent more expensive than a Lyft or an Uber'.
Alex Bitter, from Business Inside,r compared the cost of his first Waymo trip in San Francisco with the price of Uber and Lyft, and similarly found Waymo more expensive.
He found that a 12 minute ride on Waymo was $16 at around 9.30am - the rush-hour traffic time when prices are traditionally higher.
In comparison an UberX would have cost Bitter around $13 and a Lyft (which was running a discount when he checked) was $10.
Bitter wrote that 'with a 20 per cent tip, the Uber ride would have cost about the same as Waymo, but the Lyft ride would've been a few dollars cheaper.'
This was despite the fact that Waymo doesn't have a human driver labour cost to pay.
A Waymo spokesperson told Business Insider that the company looks at multiple factors when pricing rides, such as the trip's duration and distance. 'During busier times, such as morning rush hour and weekends, prices may be higher'.