00:00I'm currently in one of the first robo-taxis to be commercially available in London.
00:07It's been made available through a partnership between Uber and Wave,
00:11which is a British autonomous driving startup.
00:15We're in the centre of London, currently in Westminster.
00:18It's very busy, lots of pedestrians, it's still raining.
00:22It's difficult for autonomous driving technology to deal with.
00:26Obviously not much rain in San Francisco and Phoenix, where a lot of the testing's been done so far.
00:33There is a safety operator in the car, but he is not touching the steering wheel.
00:38He's there in case of an emergency or if he needs to intervene.
00:42Wave's fleet of fully driverless vehicles are still in development and will require new licences to operate.
00:48Alphabet's Waymo is also testing its robo-taxis here,
00:51but won't roll out the service until they can operate without a supervisor on board.
00:55I've now been in the car, I think we've been in for about 40 minutes,
01:00and the vast majority of that time it's been driving completely autonomously.
01:06There are a few minor moments where the safety operator briefly took control.
01:12Right now, the focus is on building trust that the technology can safely navigate the capital.
01:17Whether it then catches on in a city famous for its black cabs is another question.
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