Look ma, no hands! Testing Wayve’s autonomous driving cars in London

Look ma, no hands! The last time I said this, I was wobbling down a country road learning to ride my bike.

This time, the car was doing both the driving and the learning for me.

For the Virgin Hotels London opening party, I rolled up in style, chauffeured by none other than a Wayve self-driving car.

Wayve's approach to autonomous driving with AI is different to anything else on the market. Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO, joined me on the drive to explain how they are pushing the forefront of machine learning technology into the world of self-driving, learning to drive from data and experience. This AI-first deep learning approach lets its Wayve AI Driver learn to drive more like a human: seeing, interpreting, and safely adapting to new, unseen environments without the need for expensive sensors and high-definition maps. This positions it as one of the most radical and scalable approaches in the autonomous vehicle industry.

I have always been impressed by Wayve’s vision, and Virgin invested in the company back in 2020. It’s been great to see them going from strength to strength. Wayve has transformed from a UK-based startup into a prominent player in the global autonomous driving industry, with offices in the UK, US, Canada, Japan and Germany. They have advanced their tech; secured more than $1bn in funding from investors; and announced great partnerships with the likes of Uber and Nissan. It’s truly spectacular seeing a car drive itself and I can’t wait to see this tech in cars all around the world.

Harry Kinnaird

During the ride, I shared with Alex that I don’t think I’ve said wow this much since being in space! What Wayve has built is truly transformative and it’s exciting to think that this technology could be coming to consumer vehicles soon, with Nissan featuring it in their proPILOT technology from 2027.

Virgin has always had a restless spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation and market disruption. It’s fantastic to support solutions that have the potential to revolutionise the way things are done.

Some innovations will always seem like science fiction – and for me, self-driving is one of them.

Find out more about Wayve right here.