Waymo's Robotaxis Are Coming to London

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

standardUser

25 points

6 comments

wired.comTechstory

calmmixed

Debate

20/100

Autonomous VehiclesWaymoSelf-Driving Cars

Key topics

Autonomous Vehicles

Waymo

Self-Driving Cars

Waymo is expanding its robotaxi service to London, sparking discussions about the readiness and implications of autonomous vehicles in a new market.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

Discussion Activity

Light discussion

First comment

46m

Peak period

4-5h

Avg / period

1.2

Key moments

01Story posted
Oct 15, 2025 at 5:36 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01
02First comment
Oct 15, 2025 at 6:22 AM EDT
46m after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
2 comments in 4-5h
Hottest window of the conversation
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04Latest activity
Oct 15, 2025 at 6:28 PM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (6 comments)

Showing 6 comments

senkora

3 months ago

2 replies

I wonder how much engineering was needed to adapt to driving on the left side of the road.

I imagine that for some things you just flip a switch, but for anything neural there could be learned associations where certain objects or events are more common on certain sides of the road. I guess that Tesla would he more effected by that given their end-to-end neural architecture.

devilbunny

3 months ago

Maybe you can get lucky by mirroring the situation left-to-right. Certainly the hardest part of driving on the left isn’t being on the “wrong” side of the road but being on the “wrong” side of the car.

tim333

3 months ago

As a human driver I've never had much problem with the left right thing but a lot of road rules and conventions are different. That's always been trickier going from the UK to Paris or the US.

SideburnsOfDoom

3 months ago

Wayve (1) are driving similar test vehicles in London

Apparently they're not affiliated with Waymo, rather they are a competitor (2)

1) https://wayve.ai/

2) https://techfundingnews.com/wayve-2-billion-microsoft-softba...

falcor84

3 months ago

> its first international service could be Waymo's biggest challenge yet

Waymo have been testing/operating in Tokyo for about half a year now, so this would actually be their second international territory.

Fortune have a somewhat better writeup - https://fortune.com/2025/10/15/waymo-expand-europe-london-la...

ChrisArchitect