Baidu’s Apollo Go begins London robotaxi testing with Uber and Lyft

This is a robotaxi industry story with no direct home connection, but here's what happened: Baidu's self-driving car unit, Apollo Go, started testing driverless taxis on London roads this week, working with both Uber and Freenow by Lyft at once. The London tests are running in Brent, a borough in west London, with a safety operator still on board. Public rides won't start until 2027, and only if regulators approve. The London push comes from separate deals Baidu made in 2025 with Lyft, aimed at scaling up across Europe, and with Uber, targeting global markets outside the US and mainland China.

Days before the London tests began, Hong Kong let Apollo Go run a trial with no safety operator on board at all, the first fully driverless permit granted in any right-hand-drive market. That trial started July 27 on Airport Island. Baidu says its cars have already logged over 240,000 km in Hong Kong and now run fully driverless commercial service in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, plus a permit in Switzerland, with Kazakhstan under discussion.

None of this changes anything about your house or your utility bills. It's a sign that robotaxi testing is spreading fast internationally, including in right-hand-drive countries like the UK, but actual paid driverless rides in London are still years away and depend on regulators.