Uber has begun offering autonomous taxi rides in London at no extra cost – but there’s a catch

The next time you book a ride from Uber in London, a self-driving Ford Mustang Mach-E might turn up and take you to your destination.

That’s because Uber has just announced the start of an autonomous taxi ride service in the UK capital, and it’ll be available to customers at no extra cost. Just book an UberX, Uber Comfort or Uber Electric ride, and a self-driving car could be dispatched to pick you up.

These cars haven’t been developed by Uber itself. Instead, the ride-sharing company has entered a partnership with a British firm called Wayve – and that same partnership already offers autonomous rides in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

The specially modified Ford Mustang Mach-E cars used by Uber are fitted with Wayve’s AV 2.0 self-driving technology, which employs artificial intelligence to help it make decisions in real-time, instead of simply following a pre-programmed route. It’s claimed this approach reduces the hardware costs usually associated with driverless cars, like those used by Waymo, the Alphabet-owned autonomous taxi company that operates in the US and is currently running trials in London.

Wayve’s technology means the Uber cars aren’t restricted to a geofenced area, and can theoretically operate right across London. For now though, Uber says the service will let riders “travel to destinations across select boroughs.”

But there’s a bit of a catch, at least for now. Since the service is still in development – and the UK's regulatory framework doesn’t actually allow truly self-driving cars on public roads yet – each of the Ford Mach-Es has a taxi driver licensed by Transport for London behind the wheel.

You’re also quite unlikely to be picked up by one of these cars in the first place, since initially there are just 15 roaming London’s streets. That said, you can join an “interest list” to improve your chances of being matched with one of the autonomous cars.