Uber has started running autonomous vehicles through Manchester streets using technology from partners Pony and Verne, the same firms behind Europe's first robotaxi service in Zagreb. The Manchester operation is currently a mapping exercise: safety drivers behind the wheel, no passengers, no formal application to launch commercial service. It is, in the most literal sense, reconnaissance. The timing is deliberate. Limited passenger services with safety drivers already began last month in London under Wayve's technology and Transport for London's private-hire licensing rules. Manchester represents a second front — a city with a different regulatory structure, a different political temperature, and potentially less entrenched opposition. Uber said it expects to offer robotaxi trips in as many as 15 cities worldwide by the end of 2026, mainly in the US and Middle East. But the political headwinds are building faster than the technology is deploying. The GMB and ADCU unions have both warned that thousands of driver jobs will be lost and demanded transition support. A London Assembly transport committee report this week called for devolved authority over autonomous taxi services, citing "considerable uncertainty about many of the claimed benefits of autonomous passenger vehicles" and flagging concerns over congestion, public transport cannibalisation, safeguarding, and disabled access. Transport for Greater Manchester struck a careful tone, saying new technologies "need to be introduced responsibly, safely and with real thought about what it means for our residents." No applications have been filed. The vehicles operate under a government licence via the DVSA and Department for Transport — a national-level permit that sidesteps local authority gatekeeping, which is precisely what the London Assembly report wants to change. The core dynamic here is a platform company pre-positioning in multiple cities before regulation crystallises. Uber's playbook from its ride-hailing launch a decade ago is recognisable: establish operational facts on the ground, build public familiarity, then negotiate terms from a position of incumbency. The difference now is that regulators and unions have seen the playbook before. The generative promise is real but distant. Autonomous vehicles could reduce accident rates, lower per-trip costs, and extend mobility to underserved areas. But at this stage, no passengers are riding, no safety data from UK roads exists, and the efficiency gains are theoretical. What is concrete is the labour displacement threat: tens of thousands of private-hire drivers in UK cities whose livelihoods depend on the current model. The 20-year question is whether autonomous ride-hailing becomes a public utility with regulated access or a platform monopoly with even more concentrated value capture than today's gig economy. The answer depends entirely on whether cities get regulatory authority before Uber's mapping cars finish their work.
