Driverless taxis from Waymo will be on London’s roads next year, US firm announces
People in London could be hiring driverless taxis from Waymo next year, after the US autonomous vehicle company announced plans to launch its services there,The UK capital will become the first European city to have an autonomous taxi service of the kind now familiar in San Francisco and four other US cities using Waymo’s technology,The launch pits an innovation sometimes dubbed the “robotaxi” against London’s famous black cabs, which can trace their history back to the first horse-drawn hackney coaches of the Tudor era,But a representative of the capital’s cab drivers said they were not concerned by the arrival of a “fairground ride” and questioned the reliability of driverless vehicles,Waymo said its cars were now on their way to London and would start driving on the capital’s streets in the coming weeks with “trained human specialists”, or safety drivers, behind the wheel.
The company, originally formed as a spin-off from Google’s self-driving car programme, said it would scale up operations and work closely with Transport for London and the Department for Transportto obtain the permits needed to offer fully autonomous rides in 2026.Uber and the UK tech company Wayve have also announced their own plans to trial their driverless taxis in the capital next year, after the British government said it would accelerate rules allowing public trials to take place before legislation enabling self-driving vehicles passes in full.The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said: “I’m delighted that Waymo intends to bring their services to London next year, under our proposed piloting scheme.“Boosting the AV [autonomous vehicle] sector will increase accessible transport options alongside bringing jobs, investment and opportunities to the UK.Cutting-edge investment like this will help us deliver our mission to be world leaders in new technology and spearhead national renewal.
”A fuller rollout of self-driving taxis is expected in the UK after the Automated Vehicles Act fully takes effect in late 2027.Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, which represents black-cab drivers, known in the city as “cabbies”, said: “It’s a fairground ride.“It’s a tourist attraction in San Francisco.Quite frequently one of them will lock up in the middle of a junction because it gets confused and the police have to come and park, wait for the Waymo man to get his laptop out and get it going again.”He said London would pose a bigger challenge for Waymo, due to its irregular road system.
He added that he did not believe there was public appetite for the technology.“If there was demand for it, Nigel Farage would be saying get rid of immigrants, have driverless cars instead.But there’s no demand for it.”Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionHe said ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft might welcome the technology because it would reduce the cost of hiring drivers.Waymo, part of the Alphabet group that also owns Google, already has ties to Britain after opening its first European engineering hub in Oxford in 2019.
It is also launching services in Tokyo using Jaguar Land Rover electric vehicles, its only other current venture outside the US.Its co-chief executive Tekedra Mawakana said the technology was “making roads safer and transportation more accessible”, adding: “We’ve demonstrated how to responsibly scale fully autonomous ride-hailing, and we can’t wait to expand the benefits of our technology to the United Kingdom.”Waymo launched its autonomous taxis in 2020 and has amassed a fleet of more than 2,000 driverless vehicles.It says it has taken more than 10 million passengers in the US, offering services in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Atlanta.London would become the only European city in which the company is operational, pending approval from central government and Transport for London.
Despite some alarming incidents, Waymo said the data showed that cars driven by humans were involved in incidents that injured pedestrians 12 times more often than its autonomous vehicles.Its cars use cameras, artificial intelligence, radar and lidar – sensors that use lasers to measure distance in three dimensions – to create a map of objects around the vehicle, including in darkness and weather conditions such as rain.
Adani denies claims it sold ‘below-market coal’ leading to Queensland missing out on hundreds of millions in royalties
Adani has consistently sold coal from its Queensland mine far below market rates, according to claims made in new analysis, potentially reducing the royalties owed to the state government by hundreds of millions of dollars.The research director at the Australia Institute, Rod Campbell, calculated that Adani sold thermal coal from its Carmichael mine at an average of just over $A100 a tonne during the 2023 to 2025 financial years – its first three full years of operation.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe period saw huge coal price spikes after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Australian benchmark prices surging above $A600/t in late 2022, before moderating.Even allowing for discounted prices for Adani’s lower-quality coal, Campbell said the difference between the “realised price and expected market price is huge”.“This discrepancy means that royalty payments were far lower than might have been expected
Don’t give in to big pharma on drug pricing | Letters
While the chief executive of Eli Lilly may lament the UK’s drug prices (UK is ‘worst country in Europe’ for drug prices, says Mounjaro maker, 24 September), the NHS should celebrate them. The system put in place for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of new drugs is respected the world over and is successful in applying the principle that funding a new product should not damage the NHS as a whole. This principle of cost-effectiveness has led to widespread price reductions for the NHS that have allowed the service as a whole to benefit.The chief executive of Eli Lilly links the recent pausing or cancelling of pharmaceutical industry investments in the UK to drug pricing here, when these are down to the drug companies’ desperation to kowtow to Donald Trump.Further to this, the talk of increasing Nice’s cost-effectiveness threshold, and even index-linking this, is a disgrace (NHS could pay 25% more for medicines under plan to end row with drugmakers and Trump, 8 October)
Driverless taxis from Waymo will be on London’s roads next year, US firm announces
People in London could be hiring driverless taxis from Waymo next year, after the US autonomous vehicle company announced plans to launch its services there.The UK capital will become the first European city to have an autonomous taxi service of the kind now familiar in San Francisco and four other US cities using Waymo’s technology.The launch pits an innovation sometimes dubbed the “robotaxi” against London’s famous black cabs, which can trace their history back to the first horse-drawn hackney coaches of the Tudor era.But a representative of the capital’s cab drivers said they were not concerned by the arrival of a “fairground ride” and questioned the reliability of driverless vehicles.Waymo said its cars were now on their way to London and would start driving on the capital’s streets in the coming weeks with “trained human specialists”, or safety drivers, behind the wheel
iPhone Air review: Apple’s pursuit of absolute thinness
The iPhone Air is a technical and design marvel that asks: how much are you willing to give up for a lightweight and ultra-slender profile?The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.Beyond the obvious engineering effort that has gone into creating one of the slimmest phones ever made, the Air is a reductive exercise that boils down the iPhone into the absolute essentials in a premium body.Cut away the rear cameras, slim down the battery, remove the stereo speakers and maximise the screen, and what is left is an impressive sliver of titanium and glass
Could Trump really move World Cup games? The facts behind his threats
Which time? Tuesday was the second time Trump has threatened to take away World Cup games from US host cities on the basis of their political leadership or opposition to his policies. However, it’s important to note that this suggestion of moving games is not something Trump has suggested organically, of his own volition. In both cases, the US president was responding to leading questions centered around the idea of moving games. On 25 September in an Oval Office event, a member of the White House press corps asked Trump about cities that have demonstrated against Trump’s use of federal agencies for immigration and crime crackdowns. The reporter mentioned Seattle and San Francisco as two cities that have seen demonstrations, and pointed out that both cities are World Cup hosts (though San Francisco is not a host city, but part of the San Francisco Bay Area that will host games at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara)
Rain saves England at Women’s World Cup and ruins Pakistan hopes of historic win
Pakistan came agonisingly close to a first one-day international win against England in Colombo on Wednesday, reaching 34 without loss in pursuit of a DLS-adjusted target of 113 before torrential downpours curtailed their hopes of making history.England’s batting has lurched from one disaster to another during this World Cup – they had to be bailed out by Heather Knight against Bangladesh and by Nat Sciver-Brunt against Sri Lanka – and it looked like their frailties would return as they collapsed to 79 for seven in the opening 25 overs.After an initial rain delay of almost four hours, England returned to add 54 further runs – but Pakistan’s openers Muneeba Ali and Omaima Sohail looked to be making short work of the chase, assisted by the absence of strike bowlers Lauren Bell and Sophie Ecclestone through illness. Only further rain saved England’s blushes.“Pakistan bowled brilliantly and made it really hard for us to get into the game at all,” the England captain, Nat Sciver-Brunt, told Sky Sports
Nature groups rebuke Reeves for ‘cynical’ 11th-hour planning bill changes
Pressure on Downing Street to release evidence in collapsed China spy case
Digital ID: Danes and Estonians find it ‘pretty uncontroversial’
Keir Starmer back on familiar ground after walk-on part in the Trump show in Egypt | John Crace
Starmer says he expects debate about ‘full horror’ of what happened in Gaza when media allowed in – as it happened
Farage, not Marxism, risks ‘poisoning our kids’ | Letters