Self-Driving Cars Are Getting a New Testing Ground
New money and regulation in the UK could pull the struggling technology forward.
Britain's Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak; Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Michelle Donelan, and Alex Kendall, the co-founder and CEO of Wayve.
Photographer: Carl Court/Getty Images EuropeThe market for driverless cars has been through a reckoning. Efforts by Apple Inc., Ford Motor Co. and Uber Technologies Inc. to make AI-driven vehicles have mostly failed, while chronic overselling from Elon Musk and tougher regulatory scrutiny in the US all suggest the industry is stalling. But not all hope is lost. Google’s Waymo, General Motors Co.’s Cruise and several Chinese firms are still pursuing driverless projects. Now, the UK is racing forward in that effort too.
This month, London-based startup Wayve leapt out of relative obscurity by raising $1 billion to put its self-driving software into modern cars. The funding mostly came from existing investors including Microsoft Corp., Nvidia Inc. and Softbank Group Corp. And it came just days before the UK also passed a comprehensive law that will allow driverless cars to British roads by 2026. The regulations are the first to address one of the industry’s most chronic problems: exaggeration.