Uber and Lyft to Launch Baidu Robotaxis in London
Baidu Apollo Go RT6 fleets will test the UK’s new self-driving rules as London becomes a key battleground for autonomous rides.
Overview
- London is about to become the ultimate proving ground for robotaxis, with Uber and Lyft both signing landmark deals to run Baidu’s Apollo Go autonomous vehicles on the capital’s streets from 2026.
- Uber will plug Baidu’s fully electric RT6 robotaxis into its app for London trials in the first half of 2026, under the UK’s new Automated Vehicles Act framework that shifts liability from passengers to the “authorised self-driving entity”.
- Lyft, fresh off its acquisition of European mobility app FreeNow, will seed London with “dozens” of Apollo Go RT6s before scaling to hundreds as part of what CEO David Risher calls a vision for a “hybrid network” of AVs and human drivers.
- Baidu’s Apollo Go service has racked up more than 17 million rides and 240 million autonomous kilometres across 22 cities, and currently runs about 250,000 fully driverless trips every week.
- These London pilots don’t happen in a vacuum. Waymo is already mapping the city and running human-supervised tests, while UK-born Wayve is lining up its own AI-driven trials with Uber, turning the capital into the first real battleground between US, Chinese and homegrown autonomy players.
- The UK government is fast-tracking the future, targeting small commercial robotaxi pilots from spring 2026 and betting that self-driving fleets can help hit London’s Vision Zero goal to eliminate serious transport injuries and deaths by 2041.
- Security and trust remain the wild cards. Chinese hardware and data in a European capital will attract scrutiny, and polls still show most riders would pick a human cabbie over a driverless pod if price and convenience were equal.
- For now, expect a hybrid city: AVs handling predictable, high-density corridors while black cabs and human ride-hail drivers continue to rule London’s messier, late-night and edge-of-map journeys.
