Waymo's driverless taxis are headed to London, starting with a pilot this month (April 2026) and a full launch in September, but what does that mean for the UK capital?
Will the city's notoriously difficult to navigate streets become a chaotic mess of robot slaughter? Well, I hope not; In fact, if the London experience is anything like the Waymos I've ridden in San Francisco, it could be the Uber replacement you've been waiting for.
These robotaxis could even make London's streets a little safer.
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Waymo has been operating its robotaxis for years and, as of March 2026, has 3,000 vehicles in its fleet, so it knows how to make the driver experience seamless.
The Waymo app is essentially the same as Uber or Lyft; You choose where you want to go and get picked up, request a ride, and wait for your car to arrive.
In some ways I have found Waymo easier because when the car arrives, it displays your initials on the top of the vehicle, which means you don't have to do the awkward dance of checking license plate numbers.
To unlock the car, you have to press a button in the app, so no random person can get in before you. Once everyone is inside and wearing their seat belt, simply press a button on the car to activate it.
When you arrive at your destination, Waymo will notify you and park in a safe place. It will also provide some safety guidelines, such as checking traffic before opening the door to the road; Yes, it's obvious, but if you're coming from a party or a long day at work, a safety reminder is helpful to ease the mental load.
It's easy, but is Waymo safe?
The entire user experience is superbly seamless, and that goes for the ride too.
Driving is inherently risky (riskier than many of us realize), but according to Waymo itself, the company's vehicles have 91% “fewer serious injuries or worse crashes,” 83% “fewer crashes with airbag deployment,” and 82% “fewer crashes that cause injury” than normal human drivers.
This is all thanks to the three-sensor technology used by Waymo cars. They rely on cameras, radar, and LiDAR to create an incredibly accurate 360-degree map of everything around the vehicle, including pedestrians, obstacles, other cars, cyclists, trams, traffic signs, basically everything.
That's a lot of data and understanding than we humans can provide with just our two eyes, and we also have to deal with some blind spots while driving. So it's no surprise that Waymo is much safer.
Now, we may see some self-driving vehicles have worse safety records, but that tends to be for rivals that rely solely on cameras and artificial intelligence. Cameras alone are still not as accurate as a system with LiDAR and radar, as the technology appears to be more prone to errors due to environmental interference; For example, cameras, like our eyes, can have problems in fog, while the triple sensor setup does not.
From my own experience, I felt perfectly safe inside the Waymos I was traveling in: the driverless car drove smoothly, combined the right balance between caution and confidence, and obeyed the speed limit.
What happens to my privacy?
Finally, let's touch on privacy. In some ways, Waymo is more private than an Uber or a regular taxi, because while the vehicle has microphones, the company says they only turn on when you talk to support; otherwise they are muted.
However, there are internal cameras on all the time inside the car's cabin, with social media full of stories from people who didn't realize it.
Remember, other people have to use these taxis, and if Waymo catches you doing things you shouldn't be doing, including trying to drive the car, you'll get in trouble, which could get your account penalized or suspended entirely. So don't be weird.
Treat it like a driver is in the car with you and I'm sure your trips will be smooth.
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