Is Waymo coming to the UK? Yes, and Toyota will build the cars

Waymo is coming to the UK, starting in London, but it has no confirmed launch date for paying passengers. The company said last October that it would bring driverless rides to London, and its own plan pointed to a passenger pilot in April and a commercial service in September. September came and went without a launch.

Testing is well under way. Since April, Waymo has been driving about 100 of its self-driving Jaguar I-Pace cars around London, covering an area of roughly 100 square miles, with human safety operators on board. The company says it will start a robotaxi service as soon as it has the permits it needs.

Under UK rules, no company can sell driverless rides to the public without three separate sign-offs. As of late August, none of them had been granted.

1. Vehicle approval: the Vehicle Certification Agency has to list the car as safe to drive itself in the specific London conditions Waymo wants to cover.
2. An operating permit: the DVSA, the agency that handles driving standards, must issue an automated passenger services permit.
3. City consent: Transport for London has to agree, and it has six weeks to answer once the DVSA formally asks.

The city side may be the slowest part. A senior Transport for London official said in July that TfL was in no rush to publish its guidelines and would not be able to accept applications for some time. Until all three steps are done, Waymo’s London cars keep a safety driver on board.

Waymo’s current London test cars are Jaguar I-Pace SUVs, but Jaguar stopped making that model in 2024 and Waymo took its last deliveries last year. Its newer US robotaxi, the Ojai van built by Chinese carmaker Zeekr, is designed for American roads. Britain and Japan both drive on the left, so a proper right-hand-drive vehicle fills a real gap.

Under the deal, Toyota will build the 2027 model-year bZ4X and install Waymo’s self-driving hardware at its Takaoka factory in Japan. Toyota will make the cars, and Waymo supplies the driving brain. In North America the same electric SUV is now simply called the BZ.

• Car: Toyota bZ4X electric SUV, built for left-side traffic
• Where it’s made: Toyota’s Takaoka plant
• First tests: Japan, in 2027
• Next markets named: Japan and the UK, with others possible later

The two companies first agreed to explore working together in April 2025, and Friday’s deal turns that loose promise into a supply contract. They also said they will keep looking at putting Waymo’s technology into Toyota cars that people own themselves, though nothing concrete was announced. Toyota has not said how many cars it will build or where in Japan testing will happen.

For now, you can’t book a Waymo anywhere in Britain, and there is no price to compare with a black cab or an Uber. When rides do start, the US pattern suggests a gradual opening: a limited zone, a waitlist, then a wider rollout. In Las Vegas, Waymo opened to the public after more than 100,000 people registered interest.

Safety will be the first question for many Londoners. Waymo says its system is involved in 94% fewer crashes causing serious injury or worse than human drivers over the same distance, across more than 20 million completed trips in the US. Those are the company’s own figures, and UK regulators will make their own judgment.

You will also have a choice of robot. Uber and British startup Wayve are preparing their own London service. Uber riders can already join an interest list in the app by turning on autonomous vehicles under rider preferences, and anyone matched with a self-driving car can decline it and get a human driver instead. Uber says the robotaxi ride will cost the same as a regular one, and the cars will start with a safety operator on board. Wayve already holds 15 private hire licences covering supervised rides.

London is part of a fast expansion. Waymo runs in 15 US cities and is reported to be planning to grow its fleet from about 4,000 vehicles to 20,000 by the end of 2027. Outside the US it has named Tokyo, where it plans about 100 robotaxis with local taxi partners, plus Munich, which it hopes to open in late 2027, and Madrid.

The Toyota deal shows Waymo is planning for Britain over the long run, not just a test. But the next real milestone for UK readers is regulatory, not technical: watch for the first automated passenger services permit. Once one is issued in London, paid rides could follow within months.