内容来源：https://www.theverge.com/report/820324/wayve-driverless-robotaxi-london

内容总结：

【伦敦直击】自动驾驶出租车驶上街头 英式谨慎能否征服复杂路况？

本报记者近日亲身体验了英国首批自动驾驶出租车之一，在伦敦北部完成了一次未来感与烟火气交织的旅程。这款由本土企业Wayve研发的自动驾驶汽车，正以独特的"人性化"驾驶风格，试图在这个以复杂路况闻名的城市开辟智能交通新路径。

“马路噩梦”中的平稳行驶
伦敦被业内称为"自动驾驶的噩梦考场"：狭窄弯曲的街道源自中世纪马车时代，随处可见的违停车辆、乱穿行人、观光客与骑行族，更不必说令人头疼的环岛与阴雨天气。然而在实测中，记者乘坐的福特野马Mach-E成功应对了施工路段、新手司机、自行车群等复杂场景，甚至在盲人突然从停车间隙探出导盲杖的危急时刻及时避让。

英式AI的谨慎哲学
与美国Waymo的精准机械感不同，Wayve展现出典型英伦特质：行驶过程中频繁礼让，超车时略显犹豫，这种"谨慎驾驶"曾让记者联想到新手司机的生涩。但技术人员解释，这正源于其端到端AI模型的特点——不依赖高精地图，通过仿人类学习实现通用驾驶能力。这种特性使其在苏格兰高地测试时同样游刃有余。

商业化进程与行业博弈
据官方计划，Wayve将与优步合作，于2026年在伦敦启动L4级全自动驾驶出租车试运营。同时美国Waymo也宣布进军伦敦市场，预示着资本与技术的双重竞赛。不过伦敦市民对自动驾驶的接受度仍是关键挑战，民调显示英国民众对汽车AI的信任度全球垫底。传统黑色出租车司机则表现出不屑，将其称为"游乐场观光车"。

未来之路任重道远
尽管体验中仍能感受到急刹颠簸，与旧金山Waymo的平稳存在差距，但当车辆最终返回园区时，记者已不再在意操控权归属。这款诞生于剑桥车库的AI驾驶系统，正用其特有的"不完美人性化"证明：在充满历史纠葛的伦敦街道上，或许不需要科幻般的完美，更需要的是与这座城市呼吸同步的适应力。

中文翻译：

我从未真正相信自动驾驶汽车会出现在英国。几周前，当我爬进Wayve公司的一辆自动驾驶汽车，准备体验北伦敦环游时，你可以想象我有多惊讶。

搭乘英国首辆自动驾驶汽车

Wayve的表现略显谨慎，但这辆机器人出租车却充满人情味——当盲人突然从前方走出时，它及时刹停了。

今年六月，该公司宣布与优步合作，计划最早于2026年在伦敦启动L4级全自动驾驶出租车试运营。这是英国政府推动自动驾驶技术普及的重要一环，旨在2027年末实现大规模推广。由Alphabet控股的Waymo现已遍布旧金山、洛杉矶、菲尼克斯等美国城市，同样将目光投向了伦敦，计划于2026年推出全无人驾驶出租车服务，这将是其首次进军美国以外市场。

我对自动驾驶汽车能否适应伦敦的质疑并非空穴来风。从多维度来看，伦敦堪称机器人出租车的噩梦之境。这座城市的每个角落都与自动驾驶概念格格不入：蛛网般的狭窄街道蜿蜒曲折，源自数百年前为马车设计的道路布局，对现代汽车而言犹如水泥迷宫。躲避坑洼与停泊车辆已属不易，更不必提川流不息的车辆、乱穿行的路人、游客、自行车、公交车、出租车以及偶现的军马。至于环形路口和恶劣天气，更是无需赘述的挑战。

即便技术层面攻克难关，仍需赢得伦敦市民的认同。这或许比技术突破更为艰难——我们生性多疑，在"汽车搭载AI"的接受度调查中，英国民众始终位列全球倒数。过去该领域过度宣传与屡次失败留下的信任裂痕，需要从业者全力弥合。此外，经典黑色出租车的抵制不容小觑：当年优步登陆时，出租车司机多次引发全城交通瘫痪，至今仍与这家共享出行巨头势同水火。不过这次他们似乎并未严阵以待，仅将无人驾驶汽车嘲讽为"游乐场花车"和"旧金山旅游噱头"。

Wayve总部毫无旧金山式的观光气息。裸露砖墙与黑钢围栏的组合，让这家2017年从剑桥车库起步、仍由联合创始人亚历肯德尔掌舵的企业，散发着随意改造的仓库气质。十五分钟车程外的国王十字区已是谷歌、Meta等科技巨头的聚集地，那片重生的工业荒原显然更符合人们对融资超十亿美元（投资方包括英伟达、微软与软银，据传正进行二十亿美元新一轮融资）的科技公司的想象。

他们的福特野马Mach-E车队外观也并不未来——仅挡风玻璃上方的传感器盒暗示着取代人类的野心，与Waymo车顶突兀的拱形装置迥然不同。

车内同样平凡。驶离园区时，唯一引人注目的是中控台鲜红的紧急制动按钮，它提醒着在法律层面仍需人类驾驶员随时接管。若非提示AI接管的蜂鸣声响起，我根本不会察觉控制权已完成移交。

它的城市表现远超预期：几分钟内便从宁静支路汇入繁忙干道，灵巧穿梭于停泊车辆与货运车之间，当外卖电动自行车抢道时礼貌减速，更值得称道的是，对那些将斑马线视为装饰的行人始终保持安全距离。

但乘坐体验远非平稳，今夏在旧金山初乘Waymo时那种云端漫步的宁静在此荡然无存。Wayve的犹豫感让我想起妹妹刚拿驾照时带我练车的场景。这种迟疑在伦敦显得尤为突兀——我接触过的朋友、出租车与网约车司机都带着风风火火的自信，而Wayve全然缺乏这种紧迫感。虽然我考取驾照十五年来始终依赖地铁出行，但其反复停顿仍让我焦躁。当车辆跟随自行车缓缓驶过彭顿维尔监狱高墙时，我确信即便是新手也能安全超车，更不用说惯于见缝插针的伦敦司机。

后来我理解这种谨慎实为刻意设计。与Waymo融合高精地图、规则程序与传感器的方案不同，Wayve采用端到端AI模型实现通用化驾驶——更接近人类思维而非机器逻辑。实际体验确实如此：我频频偷瞄安全员的双手，总觉得他早已暗中接管，其实始终未有干预。其他驾驶者似乎也被迷惑，当车辆让出空间供警车转入加油站时，警察抬手致谢的动作（虽然可能是给安全员的）便是明证。

理论上这种具身智能方案能让Wayve车辆适应任何环境，如同人类在陌生城市导航。尽管我尚未做好亲测准备，但团队透露近期在苏格兰高地的测试已安然完成。这家瞄准日欧美市场的企业，今年正通过AI"路演"在全球500座陌生城市验证技术。如此看来，Wayve或许根本无需参加伦敦出租车司机必备的"知识测试"——那套需要熟记数千街道、无需GPS即可导航的严苛考试（也正是让科学家对司机大脑着迷的原因）。

这种技术路径意味着车辆能以更灵活的方式应对突发状况，以近似人类的判断处理令自动驾驶厂商头疼的极端案例。此行中，无论是施工路段、实习车辆、自行车群、伦敦巴士，还是突然拐入街道的拄拐者，它都能稳妥应对（虽比本地司机更谨慎）。最惊心动魄的时刻当属盲人从停车间隙探出手杖——场景戏剧性到令我怀疑是否人为安排（公司予以否认）——未待我反应，车辆已悄然降速调整轨迹。

当重返Wayve园区时，我已不再纠结操控权归属。直到刺耳蜂鸣声再次宣告人类接管，我才惊觉自己的大脑早已接纳了这种自动驾驶——至少是伦敦版本的自动驾驶。它或许不够完美，缺乏科幻感，却更贴近人性。或许，这才是技术应有的模样。

英文来源：

I never really believed self-driving cars would make it to the UK, so you can imagine my surprise when I found myself clambering into one of Wayve’s autonomous vehicles for a journey around north London a few weeks ago.
I rode in one of the UK’s first self-driving cars
Wayve was a little timid, but the robotaxi felt human, and it didn’t hit the blind man who walked out in front of us.
Wayve was a little timid, but the robotaxi felt human, and it didn’t hit the blind man who walked out in front of us.
In June, the company announced plans with Uber to begin trialing Level 4 fully autonomous robotaxis in the capital as soon as 2026, part of a government plan to fast-track self-driving pilots ahead of a potential wider rollout in late 2027. Alphabet-owned Waymo, now a staple fixture of US cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, also has its eyes on London, announcing plans for its own fully driverless robotaxi service in 2026, one of its first efforts to expand beyond the US.
My skepticism on whether self-driving cars will work in London isn’t unfounded. On many levels, London is a robotaxi’s worst nightmare. At every possible turn, the city is at odds with autonomy. Its road network is narrow, winding, and hellish to navigate, a morass of concrete that emerged over centuries, designed to be used by horses and carts, not cars. Tight streets make avoiding obstacles — potholes, parked cars, you know the drill — even tougher, and this is before we’ve even started to consider the flood of other vehicles, jaywalkers, tourists, cyclists, buses, taxi cabs, and animals (like rogue military horses) sharing the road. And the less said about roundabouts or the weather, the better.
Even if a robotaxi manages to successfully navigate London, it needs Londoners on board with the technology too. This might be tough. We’re a skeptical bunch and when it comes to putting AI in cars; surveys rank Brits among the world’s worst. There’s also been a lot of hype — and failure — surrounding the technology in the past, leaving a legacy of distrust and disbelief entrants must dispel. And there’s the iconic black cabs to contend with, and they’ve been known to drive a hard bargain. When Uber first came on the scene, cabbies repeatedly brought London to a standstill, and the group is still at war with the ridesharing company today. That said, they don’t seem too threatened this time around, dismissing driverless cars as “a fairground ride” and “a tourist attraction in San Francisco.”
Wayve’s headquarters didn’t feel like a San Francisco tourist attraction. The combination of undecorated brick and black metal fencing gives Wayve, which started life in a Cambridge garage in 2017 and is still led by cofounder Alex Kendall, the vibe of a random warehouse. Just 15 minutes away is King’s Cross, a reformed industrial wasteland now home to companies like Google and Meta, which many would consider a more conventional setting for a company that has raised more than $1 billion from titans like Nvidia, Microsoft, and SoftBank (and is reportedly in talks to raise up to $2 billion more).
Its cars — a fleet of Ford Mustang Mach-Es — didn’t look that futuristic either. The only real giveaway that they planned to replace human drivers was a small box of sensors mounted above the windshield, a far cry from the obtrusive humps on top of Waymos.
Inside, it was just as ordinary. As we rolled out of Wayve’s compound, the only thing that really stood out was the big red emergency stop button in the center console, a reminder that, legally speaking, a human driver needs to be ready to seize control at any moment. If it hadn’t been for the shrill buzz going off to indicate the robotaxi had taken over, I don’t think I’d have noticed the driver had given up any control at all.
It handled the city well — far better than I expected. Within minutes, we’d left the quiet side streets near Wayve’s base and joined a busier road. The car eased between parked cars and delivery vehicles, slowed politely when food couriers cut in front of us on electric bikes, and, mercifully, didn’t mow down any of the pedestrians who treated London’s crossings more like suggestions than rules.
The ride wasn’t exactly smooth, though, and nothing like the ethereal calm I felt when I took my first Waymo in San Francisco this summer. Wayve was more hesitant than I’m used to, a little like when my sister took me out for the first time after earning her license a few years ago.
That hesitancy is especially odd in London. Friends, cabbies, bus drivers, and Uber drivers I’ve ridden with all seem to exude a kind of impatient confidence, a sense of urgency that Wayve utterly lacked. I’ve not driven since I passed my test 15 years ago — the Tube makes it pretty easy to do without in London — but its pauses still managed to test my patience. Our route took us past the high walls of Pentonville Prison in Islington, and we trundled behind a cyclist I was sure even I could safely overtake and any Londoner certainly would have.
I later learned this tentativeness is a feature, not a bug. Unlike Waymo — which uses a combination of detailed maps, rules, sensors, and AI to drive — Wayve employs an end-to-end AI model that lets it drive in a generalizable way. In other words, Wayve drives more like a human and less like a machine. It certainly felt that way; I kept glancing at the safety driver’s hands, half expecting to see them having already retaken control. They never had. Other drivers seemed convinced too. A policeman even raised his hand in thanks as we left him a space to turn into a petrol station, though maybe that was meant for the safety driver.
In theory, this embodied AI approach means you could drop a Wayve car anywhere and it would simply adapt, similar to the way a human driver might when navigating an unfamiliar city. I’m not sure I’m ready to test that myself, but the team said they’d recently been driving out in the Scottish Highlands and came back unscathed.
I later learned the company, which is targeting markets in Japan, Europe, and North America, has been traveling around the world on an AI “roadshow” this year to test its technology in 500 unfamiliar cities. Knowing this, it seems Wayve will have little need to take The Knowledge, a series of exams for London’s black cab drivers to show they have memorized thousands of streets and places, letting them navigate without GPS (it also makes scientists love their brains).
The approach means the technology is also designed to respond to the world more fluidly and react in a more human manner to those unexpected scenarios and edge cases that terrify autonomous carmakers. On my trip, it did just that. Roadworks, learner drivers, groups of cyclists, and London buses, even a person on crutches veering into the street — it handled each capably, albeit more cautiously than a London driver probably would have. The most nerve-wracking moment came when a blind man edged out with his cane between two parked cars — a scene so on the nose I had to ask the company if it had been staged (it hadn’t) — but before I could react, the car had already slowed and shifted course.
By the time we pulled back into Wayve’s compound, I realized I’d stopped wondering who was driving. It was only the repeat of the shrill buzzer that signaled our safety driver was back in control. My brain, it seems, has finally accepted autonomy, at least London’s version of it. It’s rougher around the edges, less sci-fi, more human. And maybe that’s the point.