Three robotaxi operations are converging on London simultaneously — Wayve (backed by Uber), Waymo, and Baidu's Apollo Go (via Freenow by Lyft) — and the mayor wants a brake pedal the current regulatory framework doesn't give him. Under UK law for fully autonomous vehicles, Transport for London can only grant or refuse consent for their use within the city. It cannot manage, license, or cap robotaxi services. Khan is lobbying Westminster to change that. The timing is pointed. Freenow by Lyft hopes to launch fully driverless Baidu vehicles in London as early as next year under the national licensing scheme, while Uber's partnership with Wayve already has safety-driver-equipped cars operating under TfL licence. About 24 Baidu Apollo Go vehicles are testing in the borough of Brent. All three major players are treating London as their primary UK beachhead. Khan's argument has two prongs: congestion and livelihoods. London has approximately 10 million residents, narrow roads, and no existing cap on private hire vehicles or taxis — a power TfL has separately lobbied for and been denied. Robotaxis threaten to compound an already unregulated volume problem. Drivers' unions have protested at Wayve and Waymo's London headquarters, and many Uber drivers see their jobs as directly at risk. Freenow by Lyft's response is the standard tech-disruption playbook: displaced drivers will find employment in remote operations and servicing at a promised purpose-built AV depot. The company also frames the black cab threat as demographic rather than technological — two-thirds of black cab drivers are over 50 and retiring, and the vehicle itself is too expensive. This framing conveniently sidesteps the private hire driver population, which is younger and far larger. The integrity challenge is real. Test trips still frequently require human intervention. Roadworks defeat the systems. The cars get honked at for obeying speed limits in a city where other drivers don't. These are not deployment-ready vehicles operating at scale; they are demonstration-stage prototypes being positioned for regulatory lock-in before the rules are written. The structural question is who writes those rules. A national framework benefits the robotaxi companies — one approval process, no city-by-city negotiation. Local licensing benefits incumbents and gives cities leverage over deployment pace and volume. Khan is correct that the current regulatory architecture leaves London with a binary switch (yes/no) rather than a dial. Whether Westminster grants that dial determines who captures the value of London's streets for the next two decades. The deeper pattern: three foreign-backed autonomous vehicle platforms are racing to establish operating precedent in a city whose transport authority lacks the legal tools to manage the rollout. That regulatory gap is not an accident — it is the product companies are buying.
