Latest news with #Level4
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Wayve and Uber Partner to Launch L4 Autonomy Trials in the UK
LONDON & SAN FRANCISCO, June 10, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wayve and Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) today announced a first-ever plan to develop and launch public-road trials of Level 4 (L4) fully autonomous vehicles in London. This announcement marks the UK as the largest market where Uber has announced an intention to pilot autonomous vehicles. These trials will combine Wayve's industry-leading Embodied AI platform with Uber's global mobility network, marking a significant step forward in bringing autonomous vehicles to the streets of Europe at scale. This opportunity has been enabled by the UK Secretary of State for Transport's announcement today of an accelerated framework for self-driving commercial pilots, a crucial step towards making the UK a world leader in this technology. Wayve and Uber will collaborate with the UK Government and Transport for London on the permitting and regulatory approval process prior to launch. London and other UK cities represent complex driving environments, with significantly different road layouts and traffic laws compared to locations in the US, where a majority of global L4 testing has until now been conducted. The lessons learnt from the UK will therefore be a major step forward in the development of L4 technology for deployment in cities around the world. Alex Kendall, CEO and Co-founder of Wayve, commented:"This is a defining moment for UK autonomy. With Uber and a global OEM partner, we're preparing to put our AI Driver technology into real service on the streets of London, delivering on our AV2.0 vision for scalable autonomy. Our Embodied AI learns to drive anywhere, in any vehicle, and this trial brings us closer to bringing safe and intelligent driving to everyday rides across the UK and beyond." Andrew Macdonald, President and Chief Operating Officer of Uber, added:"We're excited to take the next step in our journey with Wayve, bringing autonomous mobility to one of the world's busiest and most complex urban environments. Wayve's globally scalable AV2.0 approach makes them an ideal partner to bring Uber's autonomous vision to reality in new cities around the world. Our vision is to make autonomy a safe and reliable option for riders everywhere, and this trial in London brings that future closer to reality." Heidi Alexander, Secretary of State for Transport, said:"Today's agreement, between two leading names at the forefront of the sector, is a fantastic vote of confidence in this new technology. "By fast tracking pilots of self-driving vehicles to spring 2026, we are excited to see safety-first tests that will drive growth, create 38,000 jobs and add £42bn to our economy." AV2.0: The Foundation for Global Autonomy Wayve's AI-first approach, known as AV2.0, moves beyond the constraints of traditional AV systems that rely on HD maps, hand-coded rules, or geofenced domains. Instead, Wayve's end-to-end Embodied AI learns from experience like a human driver, enabling it to adapt to new roads, vehicles, and cities with unprecedented efficiency. This capability was recently demonstrated in Wayve's Global Roadshow, where a single AI Driver navigated 90 cities in 90 days across Europe, North America, and Japan—handling dense urban streets, rural tracks, and complex highway conditions with minimal prior exposure. Alex Kendall, CEO and Co-founder of Wayve, commented:"We drove through Tokyo, Milan, and Montana—all with the same AI model. That's the power of AV2.0. It's what gives us the confidence to launch a driverless ride-hailing service with Uber, starting in London and expanding to other cities around the world." Next Phase of the Partnership In 2024, Wayve and Uber announced a multi-year collaboration to integrate Wayve's Embodied AI into vehicles operating on the Uber platform. This next phase moves the partnership into live operational trials on UK roads, building toward scaled deployment in key European markets. Further details on the OEM partner and trial timeline will be shared in the coming months. Wayve and Uber are committed to delivering safe, convenient, and intelligent autonomous driving services, unlocking new mobility opportunities while reinforcing the UK's leadership in next-generation transportation. About Wayve Founded in 2017, Wayve is the leading developer of Embodied AI technology for automated driving. Their advanced AI software and foundation models for autonomy enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any environment, enhancing the usability and safety of autonomous driving systems. Wayve is developing mapless and hardware-agnostic Embodied AI products for automakers and fleet owners, accelerating the path from assisted to automated driving. Backed by top investors like SoftBank Group, NVIDIA, and Eclipse Ventures, Wayve's mission is to reimagine mobility with embodied intelligence. To learn more, please visit About Uber Uber's mission is to create opportunity through movement. We started in 2010 to solve a simple problem: how do you get access to a ride at the touch of a button? More than 61 billion trips later, we're building products to get people closer to where they want to be. By changing how people, food, and things move through cities, Uber is a platform that opens up the world to new possibilities. View source version on Contacts Wayvemedia@ Uberpress@
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Autonomous Volvo Trucks Will Use This Firm's Tech
Autonomous tech developer Waabi reveals new partnership with Volvo Autonomous Solutions, with the company's AI tech slated to be used in the development of production SAE Level 4 trucks in the US. Waabi's generative AI system will train Volvo's SAE Level 4 software as the truck maker inches toward the commercial launch of its autonomous trucks this year. The Toronto-based company has recently launched a hub for driverless trucks in Texas, as work intensifies to automate the Houston to Dallas truck route. If it feels like robotaxi tech is finally gathering momentum after a few years of small-scale rollouts, a similar trend is unfolding in the driverless truck sphere, which is a few years behind the currently unfolding robotaxi revolution. Toronto-based autonomous tech developer Waabi, which recently opened an autonomous trucking terminal near Dallas with facilities tailor-made for a fleet of driverless trucks, is perhaps best known in the industry for its AI training model for autonomous vehicles. And now it is teaming up with Volvo Autonomous Solutions to vertically integrate Waabi Driver—its virtual driver system—into Volvo's upcoming VNL Autonomous semi truck. This integration will also allow Volvo to train its own autonomous trucks using Waabi's generative AI system, which the company says can safely generalize to many scenarios encountered in traffic. The autonomous developer calls its system an AI-first approach, with Waabi World being an AI-generated closed-loop simulation engine offering countless scenarios for training driverless systems, both in everyday driving and rare edge cases. "At Waabi, we believe that vertically integrating next-generation AI technology directly into an OEM's vehicle production is the path forward to bring safe, robust autonomous vehicles to the road, at scale," said Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi. The SAE Level 4 trucks themselves face a different set of traffic challenges than robotaxis, needing to see and interpret events unfolding much further down the road, up to a half mile in some circumstances. They also need truck terminals specially suited to autonomous vehicles, as well as a remote command center that monitors the fleet in real time and makes adjustments as necessary. Most of autonomous truck development efforts are centered on the Dallas to Houston route, which has already seen on-road testing by a number of developers and truck makers. This is due in large part to Texas' embrace of autonomous testing, along with Nevada, but most of the efforts contemplate purely intra-state routes of just a few hours between warehouse centers. But it's a start. Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Waabi plan to begin testing the Waabi Driver system in its trucks later this year, with Volvo's VNL Autonomous trucks themselves slated to enter production at the company's main plant in New River Valley, Virginia, in 2025. "Waabi is at the forefront of developing self-driving technologies leveraging the full power of AI," said Shahrukh Kazmi, chief product officer at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. It remains to be seen just how quickly Volvo and other hopefuls can scale their SAE Level 4 trucks in Texas. But a number of major fleets are already getting ready for a future where driverless trucks will be a common sight, at least in a handful southwest states. Will even 10% of truck routes in the US be served by autonomous trucks by 2030, or will this transition take far longer to gather momentum? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
