With several self-driving companies planning to launch in London this year, we look to Las Vegas where Waymo, Zoox, Motional and others are already competing.
Internationally renowned for its entertainment, gambling and nightlife, Las Vegas in Nevada is currently one of the world’s warmest self-driving hotspots, with multiple brands testing robotaxi services and planning commercial expansion.
Indeed, physical AI was the talk of the town at this year’s CES tech show, at the Las Vegas Convention Center in January.
Waymo robotaxis
Waymo, the company formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, were there, highlighting on socials that “We’ve received authorization from Nevada and have begun autonomous testing with a driver at the wheel in Las Vegas.”
Already providing over 400,000 rides a week in the US, its initial Vegas fleet will consist of electric Jaguar I-PACE cars with the 5th generation Waymo Driver package, and Zeekr RT minivans with the 6th generation, including software, cameras, lidar and radar.
Las Vegas Mayor, Shelley Berkley, said: “The introduction of Waymo and its autonomous driving technology is not a science experiment, but rather a proven, safe, new alternative designed to help our residents and the millions of visitors who come to our city get around – from the Strip and beyond.”
That’s reminiscent of this recent quote by our own Local Transport Minister, Lilian Greenwood: “We’re supporting Waymo and other operators through our passenger pilots, and pro-innovation regulations to make self-driving cars a reality on British roads.”
Zoox roboshuttles
Also on-road in Vegas is Amazon’s Zoox with its eye-catching purpose-built, fully autonomous bidirectional shuttle, known colloquially as “the toaster”.
Journalists and members of the public alike got the chance to ride in a Zoox for free as part of CES 2026. Among them was, naturally, our 2025 Self-Driving Consumer Champion, Joel Johnson, AKA Youtuber JJRicks.
He highlighted sky-high demand for the new service, despite buggy app issues, and enjoyed a generally satisfactory journey – as you can see here:
Writing on LinkedIn, Zoox CEO Aicha Evans predicted that 2026 will be the year of the Zoox robotaxi.
“2025 was an important year,” she said. “We launched our service in Las Vegas. We surpassed 1 million autonomous miles with our robotaxi fleet. We opened our first serial production facility in the U.S., enabling manufacturing at a meaningful scale. And we began testing in new cities, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Washington. This next year will bring scale. More vehicles. More cities. More riders.”
As mentioned earlier, Waymo and Zoox aren’t alone in Vegas. In a second Zoox trip, JJRicks spotted a test car from another provider, Motional – a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and automotive technology supplier Aptiv, which partners with ridesharing companies Lyft and Uber.
Motional robotaxis
Using modified Hyundai IONIQ 5 cars, Motional plans to launch a fully driverless Level 4 robotaxi service in Las Vegas by the end of 2026.
Motional’s scaling is, it says, underpinned by an end-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving system based on AI and machine learning (ML).
“This E2E setup enables the system to learn and output driving behaviours holistically, moving beyond stitched module outputs to more natural, adaptable driving,” said Motional CEO, Laura Major.
London robotaxis
That’s reminiscent of these recent quotes by Wayve CEO Alex Kendall. Like Waymo, but with home advantage, they’re also planning to launch public robotaxi trials in London this year.
Announcing their partnership with Uber, Kendall said: “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 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.”
While Vegas is ahead of the game, on-road self-driving in the UK is about to get real.
