Lyft and Baidu enter London’s robotaxi battleground as testing begins

Lyft and Baidu enter London’s robotaxi battleground as testing begins Kirsten Korosec 1:00 AM PDT · July 28, 2026 Chinese tech giant Baidu has started testing autonomous vehicles in London as part of its partnership with Lyft and Freenow, the German taxi and multi-mobility app that Lyft now owns. Baidu is the latest in a string of companies to test self-driving technology in the UK ahead of commercial robotaxi deployments. The testing, which began Tuesday with human safety operators, comes nearly a year after the two companies struck a strategic partnership to deploy Baidu’s purpose-built Apollo Go RT6 robotaxi across key European markets through the Lyft platform. The vehicles will eventually be available through Freenow, which Lyft acquired in 2025 for about $197 million. That deal gave Lyft a foothold in Europe’s ride-hailing market, where a handful of well-funded companies are now jockeying to be first to market with robotaxis. Baidu and Freenow by Lyft (as the latter service is now called) said they expect to invite the public to hail their robotaxis in 2027. The companies, which didn’t provide a more detailed timeline, noted that the launch will depend on regulatory approval. For now, dozens of test vehicles will operate within London’s borough of Brent. Lyft and Freenow said they continue discussions with safety and city officials, including Transport for London (TfL) and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV). The UK government is in the process of creating autonomous vehicle regulations and opened applications in May for companies interested in an AV pilot program that lets companies test self-driving vehicles under government oversight. When the service does launch, Freenow by Lyft said it will operate a hybrid network — employing the same language rival Uber has used — meaning human drivers operating taxis and private-hire vehicles will work alongside the robotaxis. “As a platform with deep roots in the taxi industry, our priority is ensuring that autonomous technology supports the professional drivers who keep London moving,” Thomas Zimmermann, CEO of Freenow by Lyft, said in a statement. When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. October 13 – 15 San Francisco Scale faster. Grow your portfolio. Gain practical expertise. No matter your goal, Disrupt can empower you.Save up to $330 today! Most Popular SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure Sean O'Kane Prentis, new AI lab co-founded by Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus in talks to raise $100M Marina Temkin US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search Zack Whittaker Anduril reportedly in talks to raise funding at $100B valuation, more than 3x last year’s mark Ram Iyer Tesla’s robotaxis are moving in reverse Sean O'Kane How OpenAI’s human mistake led to the AI-powered hack on Hugging Face Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai Jack Dorsey is taking on Slack with Buzz, a group chat platform for teams and their AI agents Amanda Silberling

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Source: TechCrunch

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