Self-driving taxis are nothing new in California, where they have been picking up customers since last summer.
But are they about to head out of Silicon Valley and into the traffic chaos of Hyde Park Corner and the M25?
A spate of job adverts has appeared on the Careers section of robotaxi firm Waymo, recruiting for seven roles based in London.
They are for a Fleet Readiness Lead and Incident Response Manager, as well as for software engineers focused on machine learning.
One fulltime role, advertised with a base salary of up to £95,000, will be tasked with ‘ensuring the Waymo fleet is ready for service’ as well as keeping cars prepared for Ride-Hail services.
While they will have to travel to the US for a month for training, the main role will be based in London, raising the question… exactly which fleet will they be maintaining?
Waymo began as as the Google self-driving car project, and is still majority owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet. In 2019, it bought British AI company Latent Logic, which uses artifically intelligence to predict realistic human behaviour in simulations.
It’s no secret that the UK is an attractive future market for self-driving taxis.
Uber has said it’s ready to put robotaxis on the road as soon as the government agrees, and they already have driverless taxis in the US, China, the UAE and Singapore.
Tesla has also tested its self-driving software on London streets with the aim of launching its Cybercab here.
In July, ministers said they would fast-track pilots schemes for the UK’s first self-driving taxis and ‘bus-like services’, so they could start from spring 2026.
Would you hail a driverless taxi?
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Yes, sign me up to the robot future
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No, it’s old school cabbies all the way
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The government said it hoped the new technology could provide more accessible travel options and boost transport in rural areas, while ‘creating 38,000 jobs and unlocking a £42 billion industry’, and a consultation about it is running until September 28.
Driverless taxis will get the full green light in the UK from 2027, when the Automated Vehicles Act is implemented.
This week’s recruitment drive from Waymo indicates the company is preparing to hit the road driving as soon as the regulation is there.
We will have to get used to seeing robots in our daily lives: you might even spot them delivering your post in future.
Last month, we followed a robotic dog doing a round of deliveries in a trial for Evri in Leeds, somewhere residents are already used to mini robots on wheels bringing them their groceries from Co-op.
Waymo is currently available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta and Austin, and says it has completed over ten million rides with a 93% satisfaction rate. It has not yet expanded outside the US however, so London could be one of its first overseas markets.
In a blog post last month, they said: ‘We’re constantly asked ‘when will Waymo come to my city?’ The answer— we’re on our way to serving major cities across the U.S. and other global cities as we work to bring the Waymo Driver to more people.’
They claimed the driverless tech was making roads safer, with 91% fewer ‘serious injury or worse crashes’ compared to an average human driver over the same distance.
Metro has contacted Waymo for comment.
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