Waymo Takes Its Show to London

The race to deploy self-driving taxis globally just got more interesting. Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) (GOOG)-backed Waymo has been spotted testing its robotaxi service on London streets, marking a significant step in the company's international expansion plans.

A video posted to YouTube by user @stevestesla9120 over the weekend shows a Waymo-branded Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicle navigating London roads. The catch? A human was behind the wheel for this test run. The vehicle wasn't operating autonomously, which makes sense given that Waymo is still working through the regulatory approval process required to actually operate robotaxis in the UK capital.

The London sighting isn't entirely surprising. Waymo had previously announced plans to expand internationally, and specifically flagged London as a target market. The company is partnering with fleet operations specialist Moove to navigate the regulatory landscape and eventually bring fully autonomous rides to British streets. It's a logical next step for a service that's already hit 14 million paid robotaxi rides in 2025.

San Francisco Challenges

While Waymo eyes expansion abroad, things haven't been entirely smooth sailing back home. The company has dealt with a string of operational hiccups in San Francisco recently, reminding everyone that autonomous vehicles still depend on very non-autonomous infrastructure.

A PG&E Corp (PCG) substation outage in San Francisco forced Waymo to pause its service entirely. The power disruption highlighted how dependent these cutting-edge autonomous systems are on basic grid reliability. Following that incident, Waymo rolled out a fleet-wide software update to address the issues.

Then came Christmas Day, when Waymo had to halt operations across the San Francisco Bay Area due to severe weather warnings. The National Weather Service had issued flash flood alerts, and apparently even robots know better than to drive through a flood zone. These disruptions underscore the operational challenges of running an autonomous taxi service at scale, even in relatively controlled urban environments.

The Competition Arrives

Waymo isn't going to have London to itself. The autonomous vehicle landscape is getting crowded fast, particularly in the UK market.

Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) and Lyft Inc. (LYFT) have both struck partnerships with Apollo Go, the robotaxi service backed by Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc. (BIDU). The plan is to bring Apollo Go's self-driving taxis to the UK next year, setting up a direct showdown with Waymo's expansion efforts.

Meanwhile, Tesla Inc. (TSLA) is making noise about bringing its Full Self-Driving technology to Europe in the coming year. CEO Elon Musk recently claimed he was driven around Austin autonomously by a Tesla robotaxi, continuing his push to position Tesla as a major player in the autonomous vehicle space. Whether Tesla's approach—which relies more heavily on cameras rather than the expensive lidar sensors Waymo uses—will gain regulatory approval in Europe remains an open question.

Price Action: According to market data, GOOGL declined 0.10% to $313.20 during after-hours trading on Friday.